The cross-signaling between (cell) adhesion molecules is nowadays a well-accepted phenomenon and includes orchestrated cellular changes and changes in the microenvironment. For example, Ep-CAM is an ...epithelial adhesion molecule that prevails in active proliferating tissue and is suppressed in a more differentiated state of the cell. E-cadherin adhesion complexes are typical for the advanced and terminal differentiated cell status. During normal proliferation, E-cadherin is not suppressed. We have demonstrated the effect of overexpression of Ep-CAM on E-cadherin, which probably affects the connection of cadherins and F-actin. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (Pi3K) participates in various regulating mechanisms, for example in signaling to nuclei, vesicle transport, and cytoskeletal rearrangements. The effect of Ep-CAM on E-cadherin mediated junctions as well as the involvement of Pi3K in regulating adherens junctions, led us to investigate the potential interaction between Pi3K and Ep-CAM. Introduction of Ep-CAM in the epithelial cells caused abrogation of N-cadherin mediated cell-cell adhesion, which could be inhibited by Pi3K inhibitor LY294002. Moreover, the Pi3K subunit p85 was precipitated with Ep-CAM from cell lysates, and this complex showed kinase activity. The Pi3K activity shuttled from N-cadherin to Ep-CAM. From our results, we conclude that Ep-CAM cross signaling with N-cadherin involves Pi3K, resulting in the abrogation of the cadherin adhesion complexes in epithelial cells.
The contribution of noncadherin-type, Ca2+-independent cell-cell adhesion molecules to the organization of epithelial tissues is, as yet, unclear. A homophilic, epithelial Ca2+-independent adhesion ...molecule (Ep-CAM) is expressed in most epithelia, benign or malignant proliferative lesions, or during embryogenesis. Here we demonstrate that ectopic Ep-CAM, when expressed in cells interconnected by classic cadherins (E- or N-cadherin), induces segregation of the transfectants from the parental cell type in coaggregation assays and in cultured mixed aggregates, respectively. In the latter assay, Ep-CAM-positive transfectants behave like cells with a decreased strength of cell-cell adhesion as compared to the parental cells. Using transfectants with an inducible Ep-CAM-cDNA construct, we demonstrate that increasing expression of Ep-CAM in cadherin-positive cells leads to the gradual abrogation of adherens junctions. Overexpression of Ep-CAM has no influence on the total amount of cellular cadherin, but affects the interaction of cadherins with the cytoskeleton since a substantial decrease in the detergent-insoluble fraction of cadherin molecules was observed. Similarly, the detergent-insoluble fractions of α- and β-catenins decreased in cells overexpressing Ep-CAM. While the total β-catenin content remains unchanged, a reduction in total cellular α-catenin is observed as Ep-CAM expression increases. As the cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesions diminish, Ep-CAM-mediated intercellular connections become predominant. An adhesion-defective mutant of Ep-CAM lacking the cytoplasmic domain has no effect on the cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesions. The ability of Ep-CAM to modulate the cadherin-mediated cell-cell interactions, as demonstrated in the present study, suggests a role for this molecule in development of the proliferative, and probably malignant, phenotype of epithelial cells, since an increase of Ep-CAM expression was observed in vivo in association with hyperplastic and malignant proliferation of epithelial cells.
Sporadic vestibular schwannomas are benign tumors originating from the Schwann cells of the vestibular portion of the eigth cranial nerve. An important clinical hallmark of these tumors is their ...variable growth rate. Investigating vestibular schwannoma biology can help to clarify this variable growth rate and may offer targets for therapeutic treatment. A recent mutation analysis on sporadic non-head and neck schwannomas detected
BRAF
mutations in around 20 % of tumors.
BRAF
is part of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway. MAPK/ERK activation is associated with an uncontrolled cell growth. Mutated
BRAF
can function as a target to inhibit this pathway. Mutations in
BRAF
and other members of the MAPK/ERK pathway have not been investigated in sporadic vestibular schwannomas before. The goal of this study was to investigate if these mutations are present in vestibular schwannomas and whether these mutations correlate with tumor growth. Tumor specimens of 48 patients surgically treated for a sporadic vestibular schwannoma were analyzed. An allele-specific quantitative real-time PCR assay was performed to detect the 13 most frequent mutations affecting
BRAF
,
EGFR
,
PIK3CA
, and
KRAS
. Radiologically measured tumor growth was included in the analysis to identify potential relationships between these mutations and tumor progression. No activating hotspot mutations in
BRAF
,
EGFR
,
PIK3CA
, or
KRAS
were detected. The 13 most frequent mutations affecting
BRAF
,
EGFR
,
PIK3CA
, and
KRAS
are not involved in sporadic vestibular schwannoma development. These results are in contrast to the recent detection of these
BRAF
mutations in non-head and neck schwannomas.
Tumor-associated macrophages contribute to vestibular schwannoma development.
An important clinical problem regarding vestibular schwannoma treatment is their variable growth rate. Tumor biological ...research can help to clarify this growth rate and may offer targets for therapy. Inflammation is an important biological process involved in the development of many solid tumors. Macrophages are major determinants of intratumoral inflammation. Macrophages can be divided into two groups; the M1- and M2-type macrophages. M2-type macrophages are associated with tumor-promoting processes like angiogenesis, tumor cell growth, and downregulation of the antitumor immune response. Both macrophages and angiogenesis can serve as targets for therapy. CD163 is a specific marker for M2-type macrophages. The goal of this study was to investigate if the expression of CD163 positive macrophages in sporadic vestibular schwannomas is associated with angiogenesis and tumor growth.
CD163 expression in 10 fast-growing vestibular schwannomas was compared with CD163 expression in 10 slow-growing vestibular schwannomas. Tumor growth was determined by comparing preoperative tumor volume measurements on MRI. The relation between macrophage expression and angiogenesis was evaluated by assessing microvessel density (CD31).
CD163 expression and microvessel density were significantly higher in fast-growing vestibular schwannomas (p < 0.001 and p = 0.019, respectively). Tumors with higher CD163 expression contained significantly more microvessels (p = 0.014).
This study demonstrates that M2-type macrophages in vestibular schwannomas relate to angiogenesis and volumetric tumor growth. These results imply that the M2-type macrophage infiltrate contributes to progressive tumor growth, making it a potential target for pharmacologic therapy.
Leiomyosarcomas are malignant mesenchymal tumors that recapitulate smooth muscle cell differentiation. Tumors are characterized by a genetic heterogeneity with complex karyotypes without a ...tumor-specific genetic aberration. Their pathobiology is still poorly understood and no specific targeted treatment is currently available for these aggressive tumors. For six leiomyosarcomas, cells were cultured and analyzed by combined binary ratio labeling fluorescence in situ hybridization (COBRA-FISH) karyotyping. A t(6;14) was identified in two cases. FISH breakpoint mapping of case L1339 reveals a breakpoint at chromosome 6p21.31 close to HMGA1 , and a small deletion was observed on the distal side of the gene. A small homozygous deletion was also found in the breakpoint region of chromosome 14q24.1 involving ACTN1 . The second case revealed a der(6)t(6;14)(p21.1;q21.3), with a duplication adjacent to the breakpoint at chromosome 6. Confirmatory FISH revealed a second leiomyosarcoma with an aberration at 14q24.1. Alterations at this locus were found in 5% (2 of 39) of the leiomyosarcomas in this study. The other identified breakpoints appeared to be non-recurrent, because they were not detected in other leiomyosarcomas, uterine leiomyomas, undifferentiated spindle cell sarcomas, or undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcomas.
Chondrosarcomas are malignant cartilage tumors that are relatively resistant towards conventional therapeutic approaches. Kinase inhibitors have been investigated and shown successful for several ...different cancer types. In this study we aimed at identifying kinase inhibitors that inhibit the survival of chondrosarcoma cells and thereby serve as new potential therapeutic strategies to treat chondrosarcoma patients.
An siRNA screen targeting 779 different kinases was conducted in JJ012 chondrosarcoma cells in parallel with a compound screen consisting of 273 kinase inhibitors in JJ012, SW1353 and CH2879 chondrosarcoma cell lines. AURKA, CHK1 and PLK1 were identified as most promising targets and validated further in a more comprehensive panel of chondrosarcoma cell lines. Dose response curves were performed using tyrosine kinase inhibitors: MK-5108 (AURKA), LY2603618 (CHK1) and Volasertib (PLK1) using viability assays and cell cycle analysis. Apoptosis was measured at 24 h after treatment using a caspase 3/7 assay. Finally, chondrosarcoma patient samples (N = =34) were used to examine the correlation between AURKA, CHK1 and PLK1 RNA expression and documented patient survival.
Dose dependent decreases in viability were observed in chondrosarcoma cell lines after treatment with MK-5108, LY2603618 and volasertib, with cell lines showing highest sensitivity to PLK1 inhibition. In addition increased sensitivity to conventional chemotherapy was observed after CHK1 inhibition in a subset of the cell lines. Interestingly, whereas AURKA and CHK1 were both expressed in chondrosarcoma patient samples, PLK1 expression was found to be low compared to normal cartilage. Analysis of patient samples revealed that high CHK1 RNA expression correlated with a worse overall survival.
AURKA, CHK1 and PLK1 are identified as important survival genes in chondrosarcoma cell lines. Although further research is needed to validate these findings, inhibiting CHK1 seems to be the most promising potential therapeutic target for patients with chondrosarcoma.
Chondrosarcoma is a malignant cartilage forming bone tumour for which no effective systemic treatment is available. Previous studies illustrate the need for a better understanding of the role of the ...IGF pathway in chondrosarcoma to determine if it can be a target for therapy, which was therefore explored in this study.
Expression of mediators of IGF1R signalling and phosphorylation status of IRS1 was determined in chondrosarcoma cell lines by qRT-PCR and western blot. The effect of activation and inhibition of IGF1R signalling on downstream targets was assessed by western blot. Ten chondrosarcoma cell lines were treated with OSI-906 (IGF1R and IR dual inhibitor) after which cell proliferation and migration were determined by a viability assay and the xCELLigence system, respectively. In addition, four chondrosarcoma cell lines were treated with a combination of doxorubicin and OSI-906. By immunohistochemistry, IGF1R expression levels were determined in tissue microarrays of 187 cartilage tumours and ten paraffin embedded cell lines.
Mediators of IGF1R signalling are heterogeneously expressed and phosphorylated IRS1 was detected in 67 % of the tested chondrosarcoma cell lines, suggesting that IGF1R signalling is active in a subset of chondrosarcoma cell lines. In the cell lines with phosphorylated IRS1, inhibition of IGF1R signalling decreased phosphorylated Akt levels and increased IGF1R expression, but it did not influence MAPK or S6 activity. In line with these findings, treatment with IGF1R/IR inhibitors did not impact proliferation or migration in any of the chondrosarcoma cell lines, even upon stimulation with IGF1. Although synergistic effects of IGF1R/IR inhibition with doxorubicin are described for other cancers, our results demonstrate that this was not the case for chondrosarcoma. In addition, we found minimal IGF1R expression in primary tumours in contrast to the high expression detected in chondrosarcoma cell lines, even if both were derived from the same tumour, suggesting that in vitro culturing upregulates IGF1R expression.
The results from this study indicate that the IGF pathway is not essential for chondrosarcoma growth, migration or chemoresistance. Furthermore, IGF1R is only minimally expressed in chondrosarcoma primary tumours. Therefore, the IGF pathway is not expected to be an effective therapeutic target for chondrosarcoma of bone.
Introduction
Primary bone diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (PB-DLBCL) is a rare extranodal lymphoma comprising 1-2% of all malignant lymphomas. This study aims to elucidate the genetic background of a ...homogeneous cohort of PB-DLBCL.
Methods
This retrospective study consists of primary DLBCL-patients with bone localization(s) of which pretreatment fresh frozen or formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded bone tissue samples were available. Patients were diagnosed (2003-2019) at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), a center of expertise for bone tumors, Amsterdam University Medical Center (AUMC), Erasmus MC and affiliated Dutch hospitals. Based on strict definitions regarding radiological assessment of anatomical disease localizations at diagnosis three subgroups were categorized: solely osseous involvement (single or multiple bone lesions; PB-DLBCL), osseous involvement and locoregional lymphadenopathy (locoregional disease), and osseous and (multiple) extra-osseous localizations (disseminated disease).
Cell-of-origin (COO) was determined by immunohistochemistry (BCL6, CD10, and MUM1) and classified according to the Hans' algorithm. Additionally, COO was confirmed with NanoString and the Lymph2Cx assay (Scott et al., Blood 2014), in a subset of patients.
With similar procedures (Vermaat et al., Haematologica 2019), molecular profiles were determined with an in-house developed and validated targeted next-generation sequencing (tNGS) panel, comprising 52 DLBCL-specific genes, for sequencing with the Ion S5TM System. Obtained results were compared to sequencing data of (1) an independent ‘in-house’ cohort of 23 primary GCB (Germinal Center B-Cell)-DLBCL patients without bone localization (‘non-osseous‘) and (2) pooled data of 651 GCB-DLBCL patients from literature (Chapuy et al., Nature Medicine 2018, Karube et al., Leukemia 2018, Reddy et al., Cell 2017, Schmitz et al., NEJM 2018).
Results
Our cohort contained 56 patients (males, N=33, (59%)) with a median age at diagnosis of 62 years (range 13-92). Twenty-four patients had PB-DLBCL (45%), 8 had locoregional disease (14%), and 23 had disseminated disease (41%). In general, immunohistochemistry and Lymph2Cx identified a GCB subtype for the majority of all DLBCL with bone localizations (Figure-1A) and these results for the hitherto unperformed cases will follow shortly.
tNGS identified 48 genes with ‘pathogenic’ mutations, with on average four mutated genes per patients (range 0-10; Figure-1A). Overall, high mutation frequencies were observed in TNFRSF14 (33%), KMT2D (27%), EZH2 (25%), CREBBP (22%), B2M (22%), and TP53 (20%) in DLBCL with bone localizations and mainly genes involved in epigenetic machinery. In PB-DLBCLs, high frequency of mutated EZH2 (38%) and IRF8 (25%) were identified. Both are epigenetic genes that regulates tumor suppression and type I interferon, respectively. In four PB-DLBCLs EZH2 and IRF8 were concomitantly mutated. Locoregional disease showed a similar molecular profile as PB-DLBCL. Association with clinical characteristics will be performed shortly.
Compared to our cohort of non-osseous GCB-DLBCL (Figure-1B) and pooled data of GCB-DLBCL in large sequencing studies (Figure-1C), EZH2 (Chi-square; P=0.046 and P=0.005, respectively) was significantly more frequently mutated in PB-DLBCL, though IRF8 did not attain this significance (Chi-square; P=0.121 and P=0.111, respectively; Figure-1D).
Conclusion
This study is the first that provides integrative analyses of immunohistochemistry, Lymph2Cx, and tNGS of a homogeneous cohort of PB-DLBCL, demonstrating the importance of epigenetic genes in lymphomagenesis. In contrast to (non-osseous) GCB-DLBCLs, the molecular profile of PB-DLBCL is characterized by significantly frequent mutations in EZH2 and frequent mutations in IRF8 and other epigenetic genes, which is indicative for a GCB phenotype (Scherer F. et al., Sci Transl Med 2016) and supported by immunohistochemistry and Lymph2Cx data. These results suggest that PB-DLBCL is a specific DLBCL-entity with a unique molecular profile and provide a rationale for exploration of novel targeted treatment with EZH2 (and IRF8) inhibitors for PB-DLBCL patients.
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Lugtenburg:Genmab: Consultancy, Honoraria; Servier: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Roche: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding, Speakers Bureau; BMS: Consultancy; Celgene: Consultancy, Honoraria; Janssen Cilag: Honoraria; Takeda: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding. Kersten:Gilead: Honoraria; Mundipharma: Honoraria, Research Funding; Roche: Honoraria, Research Funding; Celgene: Honoraria, Research Funding; Amgen: Honoraria, Research Funding; Takeda Oncology: Research Funding; Miltenyi: Honoraria; Kite Pharma: Honoraria, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Honoraria, Research Funding; Novartis: Honoraria.
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