JCO Precision Oncology: Disparate Rates of Germline Variants in Cancer Predisposition Genes in African American/Black Compared With Non-Hispanic White Individuals Between 2015 and 2022 (Tomlinson)

July 12, 2024

Rachel B. Wyatt Castillo, MS, CGC, Sarah M. Nielsen, MS, CGC, Elaine Chen, PhD, Brandie Heald, MS, CGC,, Rachel E. Ellsworth, PhD  Edward D. Esplin, MD, PhD, FACMG, and Gail E. Tomlinson, MD, PhD  Abstract Purpose African American/Black (AA/B) individuals are under-represented in genomic databases and thus less likely to receive definitive information from germline genetic testing (GGT) than non-Hispanic White (NHW) individuals. With nearly 500,000 AA/B and [...]

eLife: SERBP1 interacts with PARP1 and is Present in PARylation-Dependent Protein Complexes Regulating Splicing, Cell Division, and Ribosome Biogenesis (Penalva, Libich, et al)

July 3, 2024

Kira Breunig Xiufen Lei Mauro Montalbano Gabriela D. A. Guardia Shiva Ostadrahimi Victoria Alers Adam Kosti Jennifer Chiou Nicole Klein Corina Vinarov Lily Wang Mujia Li Weidan Song W. Lee Kraus David S. Libich Stefano Tiziani Susan T. Weintraub Pedro A. F. Galante Luiz O. F. Penalva Abstract RNA binding proteins (RBPs) containing intrinsically disordered [...]

Scientific Reports: STEAP2 promotes hepatocellular carcinoma progression via increased copper levels and stress-activated MAP kinase activity (Chen)

June 20, 2024

Carla Zeballos Torrez, Acarizia Easley, Hakim Bouamar, Guixi Zheng, Xiang Gu, Junhua Yang, Yu-Chiao Chiu, Yidong Chen, Glenn A. Halff, Francisco G. Cigarroa Lu-Zhe Sun Abstract Six Transmembrane Epithelial Antigen of Prostate 2 (STEAP2) belong to a family of metalloreductases, which indirectly aid in the uptake of iron and copper ions. Its role in hepatocellular [...]

MDPI Cancers: Synergistic Antitumor Activity of Talazoparib and Temozolomide in Malignant Rhabdoid Tumors (Kurmasheva, Lai, & Chen)

June 18, 2024

      Elena Mironova, Sebastian Molinas, Vanessa Del Pozo, Abhik M. Bandyopadhyay, Zhao Lai, Dias Kurmashev, Eric L. Schneider, Daniel V. Santi, Yidong Chen, Raushan T. Kurmasheva Simple Summary Mutation of the SMARCB1 gene can cause one of the most aggressive and lethal cancers of early childhood and infancy, malignant rhabdoid tumor (MRT). Despite [...]

Neoplasia: Aurkin-A, a TPX2-aurora a small molecule inhibitor, disrupts Alisertib-induced polyploidy in aggressive diffuse large B cell lymphoma. (Sung Lab)

June 18, 2024

Patrick J Conway 1, Bárbara De La Peña Avalos 2, Jonathan Dao 3, Sebastian Montagnino 4, Dmytro Kovalskyy 2, Eloise Dray 5, Daruka Mahadevan 6 Abstract Chemotherapy-induced polyploidy is a mechanism of inherited drug resistance resulting in an aggressive disease course in cancer patients. Alisertib, an Aurora Kinase A (AK-A) ATP site inhibitor, induces cell cycle disruption resulting in polyaneuploidy in Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma (DLBCL). Propidium [...]

Cell Death & Disease: Impact of the thyroid hormone T3 and its nuclear receptor TRα1 on colon cancer stem cell phenotypes and response to chemotherapies (Penalva)

May 2, 2024

Maria Virginia Giolito, Serguei Bodoirat, Theo La Rosa, Mathieu Reslinger, Gabriela D. A. Guardia, Jana Mourtada, Leo Claret, Alain Joung, Pedro A. F. Galante, Luiz O. F. Penalva & Michelina Plateroti Abstract Colorectal cancers (CRCs) are highly heterogeneous and show a hierarchical organization, with cancer stem cells (CSCs) responsible for tumor development, maintenance, and drug resistance. [...]

Current Protocols: Approaches for Mapping and Analysis of R-loops (Bishop Lab)

April 29, 2024

Pramiti Mukhopadhyay, Henry Miller, Aiola Stoja, Alexander J. R. Bishop Abstract R-loops are nucleic acid structures composed of a DNA: RNA hybrid with a displaced non-template single-stranded DNA. Current approaches to identify and map R-loop formation across the genome employ either an antibody targeted against R-loops (S9.6) or a catalytically inactivated form of RNase H1 (dRNH1), a nuclease [...]

Patterns: Predicting drug response through tumor deconvolution by cancer cell lines (Chen Lab)

April 23, 2024

Yu-Ching Hsu 1 2 3 4, Yu-Chiao Chiu 5 6, Tzu-Pin Lu 3, Tzu-Hung Hsiao 7, Yidong Chen 4 8 9 Highlights •Scaden-CA is a deep-learning model for tumor deconvolution •Tumor deconvolution facilitates the use of a drug response prediction algorithm •The model explores drug response mechanisms via DNA mutations and/or expression changes The bigger picture Drug repurposing involves utilizing approved or investigational drugs beyond the scope of the original medical application. This approach offers [...]

Journal of the American Chemical Society: ights into Molecular Diversity within the FUS/EWS/TAF15 Protein Family: Unraveling Phase Separation of the N-Terminal Low-Complexity Domain from RNA-Binding Protein EWS (Libich Lab)

April 8, 2024

Abstract The FET protein family, comprising FUS, EWS, and TAF15, plays crucial roles in mRNA maturation, transcriptional regulation, and DNA damage response. Clinically, they are linked to Ewing family tumors and neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The fusion protein EWS::FLI1, the causative mutation of Ewing sarcoma, arises from a genomic translocation that fuses [...]

Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology: Editorial: RNA-binding proteins in cancer: advances in translational research (Penalva)

March 27, 2024

Caterina Mancarella1* Nadine Bley2 Luiz O. F. Penalva3,4 RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate RNA metabolism, processing, and translation by establishing highly dynamic interactions with hundreds of coding and non-coding target RNAs within ribonucleoprotein complexes (Van Nostrand et al., 2020). Alterations in RBP expression levels or function contribute to several pathological conditions, including cancer. Though underappreciated in the [...]