Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Life Sciences

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

2018

Cancer

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

The Splice Is Not Right: Splice-Site-Creating Mutations In Cancer Genomes, Reyka Glencora Jayasinghe Dec 2018

The Splice Is Not Right: Splice-Site-Creating Mutations In Cancer Genomes, Reyka Glencora Jayasinghe

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Accurate interpretation of cancer mutations in individual tumors is a prerequisite for precision medicine. Large-scale sequencing studies, such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, have worked to address the functional consequences of genomic mutations, with the larger goal of determining the underlying mechanisms of cancer initiation and progression. Many studies have focused on characterizing non-synonymous somatic mutations that alter amino acid sequence, as well as splice disrupting mutations at splice donors and acceptors. Current annotation methods typically classify mutations as disruptors of splicing if they fall on the consensus intronic dinucleotide splice donor, GT, the splice acceptor, AG. Splice …


Multi-Omics Portraits Of Cancer, Kuan-Lin Huang May 2018

Multi-Omics Portraits Of Cancer, Kuan-Lin Huang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Precision oncology demands accurate portrayal of a disease at all molecular levels. However, current large-scale studies of omics are often isolated by data types. I have been developing computational tools to conduct integrative analyses of omics data, identifying unique molecular etiology in each tumor. Particularly, this dissertation presents the following contributions to the computational omics of cancer: (1) uncovering the predisposition landscape in 33 cancers and how germline genome collaborates with somatic alterations in oncogenesis; (2) pioneering methods to combine genomic and proteomic data to identify treatment opportunities; and (3) revealing selective phosphorylation of kinase-substrate pairs. These findings advance our …


Tumors Interrupt Irf8-Mediated Dendritic Cell Development To Overcome Immune Surveillance, Melissa Ann Meyer May 2018

Tumors Interrupt Irf8-Mediated Dendritic Cell Development To Overcome Immune Surveillance, Melissa Ann Meyer

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tumors employ multiple mechanisms to evade immune surveillance. One mechanism is tumor-induced myelopoiesis, which expands immune suppressive granulocytes and monocytes to create a protective tumor niche shielding even antigenic tumors. As myeloid cells and immune-stimulatory conventional dendritic cells (cDCs) are derived from the same progenitors, it is logical that tumor-induced myelopoiesis might also impact cDC development. The cDC subset cDC1 is marked by CD141 in humans and CD103 or CD8α in mice. cDC1s act by cross presenting antigen and activating CD8+ T cells. Given these functions, CD103+ cDC1s can support anti-tumor CD8+ T cell responses. However, CD103+ cDC1 numbers are …