癌症差异蛋白质组学研究中样品分离和鉴定分析技术

随着人类基因组测序的完成,癌症研究的重点从基因组学转移到蛋白质组学研究中。癌症研究中的差异蛋白质组学技术也飞速发展,包括癌症样品制备、分离,蛋白质鉴定分析、蛋白质组定量研究和翻译后修饰研究等。这些技术极大地推动了与癌症相关的差异蛋白质组学研究,使蛋白质组学在癌症早期诊断、治疗,监测以及发现新药物治疗靶标方面发挥更大的作用。本文主要综述了近年来癌症差异蛋白质组学研究中样品分离和鉴定分析技术。     

癌症痛的神经生物学机制研究进展

癌症痛是影响癌症病人生活质量的一个严重问题 ,但长期以来由于缺乏合适的动物模型 ,对其神经机制的研究甚少。近年出现的小鼠股骨、跟骨、肱骨和大鼠胫骨癌症痛模型 ,极大地推动了癌症痛的基础研究。初步研究表明 ,癌症痛有其独特的神经化学机制 ,骨质破坏、外周敏化、中枢敏化及神经侵蚀都参与了癌症痛的产生。本文综述了癌症痛动物模型、癌症痛的产生机制及其药物治疗等方面的研究进展。     

癌症与可变剪接

可变剪接在发育、分化和癌症等过程中发挥着非常重要的作用。近年来,越来越多的研究表明可变剪接与癌症有着密切的关系,许多癌症相关基因受可变剪接调控。由于癌症特异性的剪接变体具有明显的诊断价值,使得对癌症与可变剪接的研究成为热点。简要概述了癌症相关基因的可变剪接、可变剪接变体的鉴定方法、可变剪接与癌症治疗等研究进展。     

癌症相关microRNA与靶基因的生物信息学分析

MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一类长度约为22nt的内源性非编码RNA,通过与靶基因转录本互补结合调控基因的表达。近年来,研究发现miRNA与癌症发生密切相关,miRNA可以直接充当癌基因或者抑癌基因而影响肿瘤的发生和生长。为更进一步揭示癌症相关miRNA的特征及靶基因的功能,文章通过数据库搜索及文献检索,在人类基因组中发现了475个癌症相关miRNA,系统地比较了癌症相关miRNA与非癌症miRNA以及基因内和基因间区癌症相关miRNA在保守性、SNP位点分布、癌谱及转录调控等特性。研究发现,癌症相关miRNA比非癌症miRNA保守性要强,发生SNP概率比较低,同时发现miRNA所涉及癌症数目与保守性成正相关。基因组定位分析发现,癌症相关miRNA比非癌症miRNA更倾向于成簇存在。进一步对宿主基因、癌症相关miRNA及作用的靶基因与癌症发生进行关联分析,发现一些非癌症miRNA的宿主基因倾向于被癌症miRNA作用。本研究结果为深入理解miRNA与癌症之间的关系,以及进一步为miRNA作为癌症诊断指示物提供理论依据。     

Oncogene:科学家鉴别出潜在的抗癌靶点

正近日,刊登在国际杂志Oncogene上题为"In vivo overexpression of Emi1 promotes chromosome instability and tumorigenesis"的一项研究报告中,来自昆士兰大学的研究人员通过研究发现了引发大多数癌症发生的关键驱动子,这些癌症包括乳腺癌、肺癌、肝癌及卵巢癌等。研究者表示,本文研究发现为后期开发改善癌症诊断的技术、治疗癌症的新型疗法提供了新的思路和研究基础。     

实验小鼠在癌症研究中的应用及其进展

小鼠是生物医学研究中使用数量最多的哺乳类实验动物。人类利用小鼠模型进行癌症研究已有100多年的历史,小鼠大量的遗传变异可作为研究人类癌症的借鉴。特别是近年来,培育成功的转基因、基因敲除等遗传工程小鼠模型,使我们对人类癌症发生有了深刻的认识,为评估癌症的诊断方法,革新预防和治疗方案提供了一个很有价值的平台。本文着重介绍了癌症研究中常用的小鼠模型、GEM模型及取得的最新进展等,分析了小鼠肿瘤模型的局限性,并对其发展趋势进行展望。     

癌症分子生物学研究的先驱——温伯格教授

癌症是威胁人类健康的重要杀手,对于它的研究一直生命科学领域的主要内容。进入20世纪70年代以来,癌症分子生物学的研究使人们在分子水平上对癌症有了更深入的认识,从而为治疗带来了希望,科学家温伯格在癌基因的发现、抑癌基因的发现以及癌发生机理方面作出了卓越的贡献,成为当前癌症研究的主要领军人物。     

利用人工智能预测癌症的易感性、复发性和生存期

癌症具有较高的发病率和致死率,对人类健康具有重大威胁。癌症预后分析可以有效避免过度治疗及医疗资源的浪费,为医务人员及家属进行医疗决策提供科学依据,已成为癌症研究的必要条件。随着近年来人工智能技术的迅速发展,对癌症患者的预后情况进行自动化分析成为可能。此外,随着医疗信息化的发展,智慧医疗的理念受到广泛关注。癌症患者作为智慧医疗的重要组成部分,对其进行有效的智能预后分析十分必要。本文综述现有基于机器学习的癌症预后方法。首先,对机器学习与癌症预后进行概述,介绍癌症预后及相关的机器学习方法,分析机器学习在癌症预后中的应用;然后,对基于机器学习的癌症预后方法进行归纳,包括癌症易感性预测、癌症复发性预测、癌症生存期预测,梳理了它们的研究现状、涉及到的癌症类型与数据集、用到的机器学习方法及预后性能、特点、优势与不足;最后,对癌症预后方法进行总结与展望。     

CNV及其与癌症间的关系

拷贝数变异(copy number variation,CNV)是指基因组发生1 Kb 以上的DNA片段的增添、缺失或重排。癌症的早期诊断与治疗一直是本世纪亟待解决的难题。CNV的相关研究为人类健康和疾病的治疗提供了宝贵的见解。目前,CNV的研究引发了人们对疾病的新探索,尤其体现在与遗传物质息息相关的疾病(例如,癌症)的病因研究、临床诊断、新药研发和治疗。该文主要综述了CNV的研究方法、形成机制以及其与癌症间的联系,以期推动癌症相关研究的发展。     

福建研制成功国内第一个白血病病毒诊断试剂

被列入国家十五科技攻关项目的湘雅医学院癌症研究课题组，首先发现了RhoC是导致肝癌扩散与转移的关键性基因。这项成果已在国际癌症研究权威杂志《英国癌症研究》上正式发表。     

Epigenetic regulation of glycosylation and the impact on chemo-resistance in breast and ovarian cancer

Glycosylation is one of the most fundamental posttranslational modifications in cellular biology and has been shown to be epigenetically regulated. Understanding this process is important as epigenetic therapies such as those using DNA methyltransferase inhibitors are undergoing clinical trials for the treatment of ovarian and breast cancer. Previous work has demonstrated that altered glycosylation patterns are associated with aggressive disease in women presenting with breast and ovarian cancer. Moreover, the tumor microenvironment of hypoxia results in globally altered DNA methylation and is associated with aggressive cancer phenotypes and chemo-resistance, a feature integral to many cancers. There is sparse knowledge on the impact of these therapies on glycosylation. Moreover, little is known about the efficacy of DNA methyltransferase inhibitors in hypoxic tumors. In this review, we interrogate the impact that hypoxia and epigenetic regulation has on cancer cell glycosylation in relation to resultant tumor cell aggressiveness and chemo-resistance.     

Role of shelterin in cancer and aging

Mammalian telomeres are formed by tandem repeats of the TTAGGG sequence bound by a specialized six‐protein complex known as shelterin, which has fundamental roles in the regulation of telomere length and telomere capping. In the past, the study of mice genetically modified for telomerase components has been instrumental to demonstrate the role of telomere length in cancer and aging. Recent studies using genetically modified mice for shelterin proteins have highlighted an equally important role of telomere‐bound proteins in cancer and aging, even in the presence of proficient telomerase activity and normal telomere length. In this review, we will focus on recent findings, suggesting a role of shelterin components in cancer and aging.     

Cell death pathology: the war against cancer

Programmed cell death was a fundamental discovery, awarded with the Nobel price in 2002 to Sulston, Brenner and Horvitz [1]. Since then it has been clear that alteration of apoptotic pathways is a common feature of tumors, enabling cancer cells to survive chemotherapeutic interventions. Thus, apoptosis is an attractive target in cancer therapy, with the aim to revert the cancer-related alterations of the cell death machinery. Here, we overview the fundamental apoptotic pathways and summarize the attempts to target apoptosis to restore cell death in cancer cells with a special focus on the p53-family and autophagy.     

The metabolic state of cancer stem cells—a valid target for cancer therapy?

In the 1920s Otto Warburg first described high glucose uptake, aerobic glycolysis, and high lactate production in tumors. Since then high glucose uptake has been utilized in the development of PET imaging for cancer. However, despite a deepened understanding of the molecular underpinnings of glucose metabolism in cancer, this fundamental difference between normal and malignant tissue has yet to be employed in targeted cancer therapy in the clinic. In this review, we highlight attempts in the recent literature to target cancer cell metabolism and elaborate on the challenges and controversies of these strategies in general and in the context of tumor cell heterogeneity in cancer.     

Diagnostics of thyroid cancer: Limitations of the existing methods and perspectives for future developments

A novel approach to the development of a precise method of intraoperative diagnostics of thyroid cancer has been proposed on the basis of fundamental study of proteasomes in malignant tumors of mammals and human. The method is based on estimation of proteasome activity in small fragments of the tumor and adjacent tissues.     

Cardiovascular ramifications of therapy-induced endothelial cell senescence in cancer survivors

Cancer survivorship has remarkably improved over the past decades; nevertheless, cancer survivors are burdened with multiple health complications primarily caused by their cancer therapy. Therapy-induced senescence is recognized as a fundamental mechanism contributing to adverse health complications in cancer survivors. In this mini-review, we will discuss the recent literature describing the mechanisms of cancer therapy-induced senescence. We will focus on endothelial cell senescence since it has been shown to be a key player in numerous cardiovascular complications. We will also discuss novel senotherapeutic approaches that have the potential to combat therapy-induced endothelial cell senescence.     

Insights into the pathogenesis and treatment of cancer from inborn errors of metabolism

Mutations in genes that play fundamental roles in metabolic pathways have been found to also play a role in tumor development and susceptibility to cancer. At the same time, significant progress has been made in the treatment of patients with inborn errors of metabolism (IEM),(1) resulting in increased longevity and the unmasking of cancer predisposition, frequently hepatocellular carcinoma, in these conditions. These patients offer a potential opportunity to deepen our understanding of how intermediary metabolism impacts tumorigenesis. We provide an overview from the perspective of cancers in patients affected with IEM and discuss how dysregulation of these specific metabolic pathways might contribute to the mechanisms of cancer development and treatment.     

Chromosome segregation and genomic stability

The acquisition of genomic instability is a crucial step in the development of human cancer. Genomic instability has multiple causes of which chromosomal instability (CIN) and microsatellite instability (MIN) have received the most attention. Whereas the connection between a MIN phenotype and cancer is now proven, the argument that CIN causes cancer remains circumstantial. Nonetheless, the ubiquity of aneuploidy in human cancers, particularly solid tumors, suggests a fundamental link between errors in chromosome segregation and tumorigenesis. Current research in the field is focused on elucidating the molecular basis of CIN, including the possible roles of defects in the spindle checkpoint and other regulators of mitosis.