Dependence of expression of regulatory master genes of embryonic development in pancreatic cancer cells on the intracellular concentration of the master regulator PDX1

Exogenous expression of the gene encoding the pancreatic master regulator PDX1 in cell lines with different degrees of differentiation of pancreatic cancer cells is accompanied by changes in the expression of known master genes involved in cancer progression. In BxPC3^PDX+ cells, as compared to BxPC3^PDX–, we detected an increased expression of the following genes: NKX6.1 (2 times), NR5A2 (2.5 times), KLF5 (1.8 times), ZEB1 (3 times), and ONECUT1 (1.3 times), as well as a decreased expression of MUC1 and SLUG genes (3 and 2 times, respectively). In PANC1^PDX+ cells, as compared to the control PANC1^PDX– cells, we detected a decreased expression of ISL1 (2 times) and an increased expressed of KRT8 (2 times) and MUC1 (by 30%). In the high-grade cell lines (including the BxPC3 line studied), the total content of sites containing the marks of active enhancers was higher than that in the low-grade cell lines (PANC1).     

Heterogeneous Expression of Embryonal Development Master Regulator SOX9 in Patients with Pancreatic Cancer

The expression levels of the SOX9 gene in fetal, postnatal, and neoplastic pancreatic tissues were compared. In the fetal pancreatic samples, the mean relative level of the SOX9 gene expression was 8 times greater than the normal level. The tumor samples were divided into three groups depending on the SOX9 expression level. The first group showed a 6.5-fold increased expression level of SOX9 with respect to the normal one. The second and normal groups had approximately equal levels expression. The third group showed a 25-fold decreased expression level of SOX9. The discrepancy in the SOX9 expression, associated with the predominance of different functions of this master gene, depends on the poorly predictable individual factors and indicates that SOX9 should be excluded from the potential diagnostic biomarkers of pancreatic cancer.     

Downregulation of expression of mater genes <Emphasis Type="Italic">SOX9, FOXA2</Emphasis>, and <Emphasis Type="Italic">GATA4</Emphasis> in pancreatic cancer cells stimulated with TGFβ1 epithelial–mesenchymal transition

We show characteristic morphological changes corresponding to epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) program fulfillment in PANC1 cell line stimulated with TGFβ1. Our results support downregulation of E-cadherin protein. We show 5- and 28-fold increase in SNAI1 and SNAI2 expression levels and 25- and 15-fold decrease in CDH1 and KRT8 expression levels, respectively, which confirms the EMT-program fulfillment. We demonstrate downregulation of expression of pancreatic master genes SOX9, FOXA2, and GATA4 (2-, 5-, and 4-fold, respectively) and absence of significant changes in HES1, NR5A2, and GATA6 expression levels in the cells stimulated with TGFβ1. Our results indicate the absence of induction of expression of PTF1A, PDX1, HNF1b, NEUROG3, RPBJL, NKX6.1, and ONECUT1 genes, which are inactive in PANC1 cell line after the EMT stimulated by TGFβ1.     

Impact of Metalloproteinase 1 Deficiency Induced by Specific Small Hairpin RNA on the Physiological Effects of Tumor Necrosis Factor

Matrix metalloproteinases play an important role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. The aim of this paper was to explore the influence of MMP1 silencing with a specific shRNA on migration and proliferation of epidermal keratinocytes exposed to tumor necrosis factor, as well as changes in the expression of genes involved in their terminal differentiation. Changes in gene expression were analyzed by real-time PCR. The cell proliferation was assessed by comparative analysis of the growth curves. The cell migration was explored by scratch assay. To quantify cell migration, the representative areas of cell cultures were photographed in the equal periods of time and compared to each other. The obtained results demonstrated that an exposure of control cell line to tumor necrosis factor caused changes in the expression of several genes similar to ones that were previously observed in lesional psoriatic skin. Particularly, the expression of MMP9, IVL and KRT16 increased whereas the expression of LOR, KRT1 and-10—decreased. In contrast, MMP1-deficient cells treated with tumor necrosis factor exhibited higher levels of LOR, KRT1 and -10, as well as lower levels KRT16 and -17 compared to control cells treated with the same cytokines. Moreover, MMP1-deficient cells exhibited a lower level of CCNА2 and higher level of CCND1. In this respect, knocking MMP1 down resulted in a lower cell proliferation and migration rates of TNF-treated epidermal keratinocytes. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that MMP1 silencing with specific shRNA can be beneficial for psoriasis. We found that knocking MMP1 down has an antiproliferative effect on epidermal keratinocytes and partially normalizes the expression of cyclins CCNA2, and -D1, as well as the genes involved in the terminal differentiation of this kind of cells (LOR, KRT1, -10, -16 and -17).     

Heterogeneity in Colorectal Primary Tumor and Synchronous Liver Metastases

The expression profile of the ZEB1, ZEB2, VIM, CDH1, SFRP2, FOXQ1, TNC, MACC1, PLS3, CFTR, FLNA, MUC2, TFF3, and RARRES3 genes, as well as the mutational status of the KRAS, NRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA genes, were investigated in 40 patients with colorectal cancer and liver metastases. A comparative analysis of changes in gene expression in primary tumor cells and liver metastases was performed. Statistically significant differences were found between the expression levels of the ZEB2 (p = 0.004), VIM (p < 0.001), FLNA (p = 0.04), and MUC2 (p < 0.001) genes. It was demonstrated that the overall frequency of mutations of the KRAS gene was 18/40 (45%) and the PIK3CA gene was 9/40 (23%). Mutations in the NRAS and BRAF genes were not found. The concordance between the primary tumor and metastases in the liver by mutation status was 100%.     

Identification of genes showing differential expression profile associated with growth rate in skeletal muscle tissue of Landrace weanling pig

Suppression subtractive hybridization was used to identify genes showing differential expression profile associated with growth rate in skeletal muscle tissue of Landrace weanling pig. Two subtracted cDNA populations were generated from musculus longissimus muscle tissues of selected pigs with extreme expected breeding values at the age of 100 kg. Three upregulated genes (EEF1A2, TSG101 and TTN) and six downregulated genes (ATP5B, ATP5C1, COQ3, HADHA, MYH1 and MYH7) in pig with genetic propensity for higher growth rate were identified by sequence analysis of 12 differentially expressed clones selected by differential screening following the generation of the subtracted cDNA population. Real-time PCR analysis confirmed difference in expression profiles of the identified genes in musculus longissimus muscle tissues between the two Landrace weanling pig groups with divergent genetic propensity for growth rate. Further, differential expression of the identified genes except for the TTN was validated by Western blot analysis. Additionally, the eight genes other than the ATP5C1 co-localized with the same chromosomal positions as QTLs that have been previously identified for growth rate traits. Finally, the changes of expression predicted from gene function suggested association of upregulation of expression of the EEF1A2, TSG101 and TTN genes and downregulation of the ATP5B, ATP5C1, COQ3, HADHA, MYH1 and MYH7 gene expression with increased growth rate. The identified genes will provide an important insight in understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying growth rate in Landrace pig breed.     

A comparative analysis of methylation status of tumor suppressor genes in paired biopsy and serum samples from cervical cancer patients among north indian population

Tumor-specific genetic or epigenetic alterations have been detected in serum DNA in case of various types of cancers. In breast cancer, the detection of tumor suppressor gene hypermethylation has been reported in several body fluids. Promoter hypermethylation of some genes like MYOD1, CALCA, hTERT, etc. has also been detected in serum samples from cervical cancer. The present study is the first report on the comparison of promoter hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes like p14, p15, p16, p21, p27, p57, p53, p73, RARβ2, FHIT, DAPK, STAT1, and RB1 genes in paired biopsy and serum samples from cervical cancer patients among north Indian population. This is also the first report on the hypermethylation of these genes in serum samples from cervical cancer patients among north Indian population. According to the results of the present study, promoter hypermethylation of these genes can also be detected in serum samples of cervical cancer patients. The sensitivity of detection of promoter hypermethylalion in serum samples of cervical cancer patients as compared to paired biopsy samples was found to be around 83.3%. It was observed that promoter hypermethylation was mainly observed in the serum samples in the higher stages and very rarely in the lower stages. The present study clearly showed that serum of patients with cervical cancer can also be used to study methylated genes as biomarkers.     

Validation of Appropriate Reference Genes for Real-Time Quantitative PCR Gene Expression Analysis in Rice Plants Exposed to Metal Stresses

Environmental pollution by toxic heavy metals may lead to the possible contamination of the rice plant (Oryza sativa L.). Although gene expression analysis through real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) has increased our knowledge about biological responses to heavy metals, gene network that mediates rice plant responses to heavy metal stress remains elusive. In such scenario, validation of reference gene is a major requirement for successful analyzes involving RT-qPCR. In this study, we analyzed the expression stability of eight commonly used housekeeping genes (GAPDH, Actin, eIF-4α, UBQ 5, UBQ 10, UBC, EF-1α and β-TUB) in rice leaves exposed to four kinds of heavy metals (Zn, Cu, Cd and Pb). The expression stability of these genes was determined using geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper and RefFinder algorithms. The results showed that UBQ 10 and UBC were the most stable reference genes across all the tested samples. We measured the expression profiles of the heavy metal-inducible gene O. sativa METALLOTHIONEIN2b (OsMT2b) using the two most stable and one least stable reference genes in all samples. The relative expression of OsMT2b varied greatly according to the different reference genes. Our results may be beneficial for future studies involving the quantification of relative gene expression levels in rice plants.     

Clusterin confers gmcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer

Objective

To measure clusterin expression in pancreatic cancer tissues and cell lines and to evaluate whether clusterin confers resistance to gmcitabine in pancreatic cancer cells.

Methods

Immunohistochemistry for clusterin was performed on 50 primary pancreatic cancer tissues and 25 matched backgrounds, and clusterin expression in 5 pancreatic cancer cell lines was quantified by Western blot and PT-PCR. The correlation between clusterin expression level and gmcitabine IC50 in pancreatic cancer cell lines was evaluated. The effect of an antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) against clusterin(OGX-011) on gmcitabine resistance was evaluated by MTT assays. Xenograft model was used to demonstrate tumor growth.

Results

Pancreatic cancer tissues expressed significantly higher levels of clusterin than did normal pancreatic tissues (P < 0.01). Clusterin expression levels were correlated with gmcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer cell lines, and OGX-011 significantly decreased BxPc-3 cells resistance to gmcitabine (P < 0.01). In vivo systemic administration of AS clusterin and gmcitabine significantly decreased the s.c. BxPC-3 tumor volume compared with mismatch control ODN plus gmcitabine.

Conclusion

Our finding that clusterin expression was significantly higher in pancreatic cancer than in normal pancreatic tissues suggests that clusterin may confer gmcitabine resistance in pancreatic cancer cells.

     

Identification of hub genes with diagnostic values in pancreatic cancer by bioinformatics analyses and supervised learning methods

Background

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal tumors with poor prognosis, and lacks of effective biomarkers in diagnosis and treatment. The aim of this investigation was to identify hub genes in pancreatic cancer, which would serve as potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and therapy in the future.

Methods

Combination of two expression profiles of GSE16515 and GSE22780 from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was served as training set. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with top 25% variance followed by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network were performed to find candidate genes. Then, hub genes were further screened by survival and cox analyses in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Finally, hub genes were validated in GSE15471 dataset from GEO by supervised learning methods k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and random forest algorithms.

Results

After quality control and batch effect elimination of training set, 181 DEGs bearing top 25% variance were identified as candidate genes. Then, two hub genes, MMP7 and ITGA2, correlating with diagnosis and prognosis of pancreatic cancer were screened as hub genes according to above-mentioned bioinformatics methods. Finally, hub genes were demonstrated to successfully differ tumor samples from normal tissues with predictive accuracies reached to 93.59 and 81.31% by using kNN and random forest algorithms, respectively.

Conclusions

All the hub genes were associated with the regulation of tumor microenvironment, which implicated in tumor proliferation, progression, migration, and metastasis. Our results provide a novel prospect for diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer, which may have a further application in clinical.

     

Induction of two cyclotide-like genes <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zmcyc1</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zmcyc5</Emphasis> by abiotic and biotic stresses in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Zea mays</Emphasis>

Cyclotides are small plant disulfide-rich and cyclic proteins with a diverse range of biological activities. Cyclotide-like genes show key sequence features of cyclotides and are present in the Poaceae. In this study the cDNA of the nine cyclotide-like genes were cloned and sequenced using 3′RACE from Zea mays. The gene expression of two of these genes (Zmcyc1 and Zmcyc5) were analyzed by real-time PCR in response to biotic (Fusarium graminearum, Ustilago maydis and Rhopalosiphum maydis) and abiotic (mechanical wounding, water deficit and salinity) stresses, as well as in response to salicylic acid and methyl jasmonate elicitors to mimic biotic stresses. All isolated genes showed significant similarity to other cyclotide-like genes and were classified in two separate clusters. Both Zmcyc1 and Zmcyc5 were expressed in all studied tissues with the highest expression in leaves and lowest expression in roots. Wounding, methyl jasmonate and salicylic acid significantly induced the expression of Zmcyc1 and Zmcyc5 genes, but the higher expression was observed for Zmcyc1 as compared with Zmcyc5. Expression levels of these two genes were also induced in inoculated leaves with F. graminearum, U. maydis and also in response to insect infestation. In addition, the 1000-base-pairs (bp) upstream of the promoter of Zmcyc1 and Zmcyc5 genes were identified and analyzed using the PlantCARE database and consequently a large number of similar biotic and abiotic cis-regulatory elements were identified for these two genes.     

Expression of Components of the Serotonergic System in Folliculogenesis and Preimplantation Development in Mice

The functions of serotonin include the growth and development regulation of female germ cells as well as early embryo development. RT-PCR analysis of mRNA expression of the genes of the enzymes for synthesis and degradation and transporters and receptors of serotonin during folliculogenesis and preimplantation development of mice was performed to discover the particular mechanisms of these functions. The mRNA of tryptophan hydroxylase tph1 and monoaminoxidase maoa; membrane transporter sert and vesicular transporter vmat2; and serotonin receptors htr1b, htr1d, htr2a, htr5b, and htr7 were revealed in granulosa cells. The expression of mRNA of the aromatic amino acid decarboxylase ddc and the htr2b receptor additionally appears in the yellow body. The expression of mRNA of the genes of the tph2, ddc, and maoa enzymes; the sert, vmat1, and vmat2 transporters; and quite a number of receptors is observed during the preimplantation development, and it is transitory in most of them. The expression of all components and its dynamics suggest that the serotonergic signaling system is functionally active in mouse folliculogenesis and preimplantation development.