Medical Specialties Commons^™

Tumor Immunology And Immunotherapy Of Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer, Tina Cascone, Jared Fradette, Monika Pradhan, Don L Gibbons

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Historically, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been regarded as a nonimmunogenic tumor; however, recent studies have shown that NSCLCs are among the most responsive cancers to monoclonal antibody immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). ICIs have dramatically improved clinical outcomes for a subset of patients (∼20%) with locally advanced and metastatic NSCLC, and they have also demonstrated promise as neoadjuvant therapy for early-stage resectable disease. Nevertheless, the majority of patients with NSCLC are refractory to ICIs for reasons that are poorly understood. Thus, major questions are: how do we initially identify the patients most likely to derive significant clinical benefit from these …

Characteristics And Outcomes Of Patients With Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm Treated With Frontline Hcvad, Naveen Pemmaraju, Nathaniel R Wilson, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, Koji Sasaki, Joseph D Khoury, Nitin Jain, Gautam Borthakur, Farhad Ravandi, Naval Daver, Tapan Kadia, Courtney Dinardo, Elias Jabbour, Sherry Pierce, Muzaffar Qazilbash, Marina Konopleva, Hagop Kantarjian

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN) is a clinically aggressive blood cancer, often involving the skin, bone marrow, lymph nodes, and central nervous system (CNS) in 20% to 30% of patients. Despite significant progress in CD123- and BCL-2-targeted therapy, most patients are not cured without hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), and CNS relapses occur quite frequently. Combination approaches with targeted and chemotherapy agents plus incorporation of prophylactic CNS-directed therapy are urgently needed. In this setting, we sought to analyze outcomes using the cytotoxic chemotherapy backbone regimen hyperfractionated cyclophosphamide, vincristine, adriamycin, and dexamethasone (HCVAD). We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients …

Impact Of Estrogen Receptor Expression On Prognosis Of Ovarian Cancer According To Antibody Clone Used For Immunohistochemistry: A Meta-Analysis, Chun Wai Ng, Kwong-Kwok Wong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: The prognostic value of the expression of estrogen receptor (ER) subtypes ER⍺ and ERβ in ovarian cancer has previously been evaluated by meta-analyses. However, the results are contradictory and controversial.

Methods: We conducted an updated meta-analysis with stringent inclusion criteria to ensure homogeneous studies to determine the effect of ER subtypes on ovarian cancer prognosis. Articles were retrieved by systematic search of PubMed and Web of Science for articles dated up to June 2021. Only studies with known hazard ratio (HR) and antibody clone for immunochemistry (IHC) were included. Pooled HRs with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were …

Enzymatic Characterization Of In Vitro Activity Of Rna Methyltransferase Pcif1 On Dna, Dan Yu, Jujun Zhou, Qin Chen, Tao Wu, Robert M Blumenthal, Xing Zhang, Xiaodong Cheng

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PCIF1 and FTO are a pair of human mRNA cap-specific modification enzymes that have opposing activities. PCIF1 adds a methyl group to the N6-position of 2′O-methyladenosine (Am), generating N6, 2′O-dimethyladenosine (m6Am), when Am is the cap-proximal nucleotide. FTO removes the N6-methyl group from m6Am. In addition, FTO has a demethylase activity on a broad spectrum of various RNA substrates, as well as on DNA N6-methyldeoxyadenosine (m6dA). While the existence of m6dA in mammalian DNA remains controversial, we show here that PCIF1 has significant methylation activity on single stranded DNA deoxyadenosine, double stranded RNA/DNA hybrids, and double …

Mutational Activation Of The Nrf2 Pathway Upregulates Kynureninase Resulting In Tumor Immunosuppression And Poor Outcome In Lung Adenocarcinoma, Johannes F Fahrmann, Ichidai Tanaka, Ehsan Irajizad, Xiangying Mao, Jennifer B Dennison, Eunice Murage, Julian Casabar, Jeffrey Mayo, Qian Peng, Muge Celiktas, Jody V Vykoukal, Soyoung Park, Ayumu Taguchi, Oliver Delgado, Satyendra C Tripathi, Hiroyuki Katayama, Luisa Maren Solis Soto, Jaime Rodriguez-Canales, Carmen Behrens, Ignacio Wistuba, Samir Hanash, Edwin J Ostrin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Activation of the NRF2 pathway through gain-of-function mutations or loss-of-function of its suppressor KEAP1 is a frequent finding in lung cancer. NRF2 activation has been reported to alter the tumor microenvironment. Here, we demonstrated that NRF2 alters tryptophan metabolism through the kynurenine pathway that is associated with a tumor-promoting, immune suppressed microenvironment. Specifically, proteomic profiles of 47 lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) cell lines (11 KEAP1 mutant and 36 KEAP1 wild-type) revealed the tryptophan-kynurenine enzyme kynureninase (KYNU) as a top overexpressed protein associated with activated NRF2. The siRNA-mediated knockdown of NFE2L2, the gene encoding for NRF2, or activation of the NRF2 …

Three-Dimensional Evaluation Of Isodose Radiation Volumes In Cases Of Severe Mandibular Osteoradionecrosis For The Prediction Of Recurrence After Segmental Resection, Haye H Glas, Joep Kraeima, Silke Tribius, Frank K J Leusink, Carsten Rendenbach, Max Heiland, Carmen Stromberger, Ashkan Rashad, Clifton D Fuller, Abdallah S R Mohamed, Stephen Y Lai, Max J H Witjes

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Pre-operative margin planning for the segmental resection of affected bone in mandibular osteoradionecrosis (ORN) is difficult. The aim of this study was to identify a possible relation between the received RT dose, exposed bone volume and the progression of ORN after segmental mandibular resection.

Method: Patients diagnosed with grade 3-4 ORN for which a segmental resection was performed were included in the study. Three-dimensional reconstructions of RT isodose volumes were fused with postoperative imaging. The primary outcome was the recurrence of ORN after segmental resection. Subsequently, RT exposed mandibular bone volumes were calculated and the location of the bone …

Tite-Boin12: A Bayesian Phase I/Ii Trial Design To Find The Optimal Biological Dose With Late-Onset Toxicity And Efficacy, Yanhong Zhou, Ruitao Lin, J Jack Lee, Daniel Li, Li Wang, Ruobing Li, Ying Yuan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In the era of immunotherapies and targeted therapies, the focus of early phase clinical trials has shifted from finding the maximum tolerated dose to identifying the optimal biological dose (OBD), which maximizes the toxicity-efficacy trade-off. One major impediment to using adaptive designs to find OBD is that efficacy or/and toxicity are often late-onset, hampering the designs’ real-time decision rules for treating new patients. To address this issue, we propose the model-assisted TITE-BOIN12 design to find OBD with late-onset toxicity and efficacy. As an extension of the BOIN12 design, the TITE-BOIN12 design also uses utility to quantify the toxicity-efficacy trade-off. We …

Gli1 Activates Pro-Fibrotic Pathways In Myelofibrosis Fibrocytes, Taghi Manshouri, Ivo Veletic, Ping Li, C Cameron Yin, Sean M Post, Srdan Verstovsek, Zeev Estrov

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Bone marrow (BM) fibrosis was thought to be induced exclusively by mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). However, we and others found that neoplastic fibrocytes induce BM fibrosis in myelofibrosis (MF). Because glioma-associated oncogene-1 (GLI1), an effector of the Hedgehog pathway, plays a role in the induction of BM fibrosis, we wondered whether GLI1 affects fibrocyte-induced BM fibrosis in MF. Multiplexed fluorescence immunohistochemistry analysis of MF patients' BM detected high levels of GLI1 in MF fibrocytes compared to MSCs or normal fibrocytes. Immunostaining, RNA in situ hybridization, gene expression analysis, and western immunoblotting detected high levels of GLI1 and GLI1-induced matrix metalloproteases …

Platelets Increase The Expression Of Pd-L1 In Ovarian Cancer, Min Soon Cho, Hani Lee, Ricardo Gonzalez-Delgado, Dan Li, Tomoyuki Sasano, Wendolyn Carlos-Alcalde, Qing Ma, Jinsong Liu, Anil K Sood, Vahid Afshar-Kharghan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The interactions between platelets and cancer cells activate platelets and enhance tumor growth. Platelets increase proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition in cancer cells, inhibit anoikis, enhance the extravasation of cancer cells, and protect circulating tumor cells against natural killer cells. Here, we have identified another mechanism by which platelets dampen the immune attack on cancer cells. We found that platelets can blunt the antitumor immune response by increasing the expression of inhibitory immune checkpoint (PD-L1) on ovarian cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. Platelets increased PD-L1 in cancer cells via contact-dependent (through NF-κB signaling) and contact-independent (through TFGβR1/Smad signaling) pathways. …

Systematic Expression Profiling Of Dpr And Dip Genes Reveals Cell Surface Codes In Drosophila Larval Motor And Sensory Neurons, Yupu Wang, Meike Lobb-Rabe, James Ashley, Purujit Chatterjee, Veera Anand, Hugo J Bellen, Oguz Kanca, Robert A Carrillo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

In complex nervous systems, neurons must identify their correct partners to form synaptic connections. The prevailing model to ensure correct recognition posits that cell-surface proteins (CSPs) in individual neurons act as identification tags. Thus, knowing what cells express which CSPs would provide insights into neural development, synaptic connectivity, and nervous system evolution. Here, we investigated expression of Dpr and DIP genes, two CSP subfamilies belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily, in Drosophila larval motor neurons (MNs), muscles, glia and sensory neurons (SNs) using a collection of GAL4 driver lines. We found that Dpr genes are more broadly expressed than DIP genes …

Genetic Origins Of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (Pcos): An Analysis Of The Genetic Correlation Between Pcos And Insulin Receptor Mutations, Lauren Henry

Undergraduate Theses

Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) remains an extremely common, yet understudied syndrome experienced by 6-12% of females of reproductive age. Not only does it cause painful side effects manifesting both physically and mentally, but it also poses a threat to the fertility of those affected. For this reason, a more in-depth analysis to better understand how to detect this condition early and prevent fertility complications later is certainly warranted. PCOS is suspected to be primarily genetic due to correlations among immediate female family members. Based on previous research, a good starting point for analysis is the INSR gene. Various mutations within …

Rapid Acceleration Of Kras-Mutant Pancreatic Carcinogenesis Via Remodeling Of Tumor Immune Microenvironment By Pparδ, Yi Liu, Yasunori Deguchi, Daoyan Wei, Fuyao Liu, Micheline J Moussalli, Eriko Deguchi, Donghui Li, Huamin Wang, Lovie Ann Valentin, Jennifer K Colby, Jing Wang, Xiaofeng Zheng, Haoqiang Ying, Mihai Gagea, Baoan Ji, Jiaqi Shi, James C Yao, Xiangsheng Zuo, Imad Shureiqi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) is a precursor of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which commonly occurs in the general populations with aging. Although most PanIN lesions (PanINs) harbor oncogenic KRAS mutations that initiate pancreatic tumorigenesis; PanINs rarely progress to PDAC. Critical factors that promote this progression, especially targetable ones, remain poorly defined. We show that peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-delta (PPARδ), a lipid nuclear receptor, is upregulated in PanINs in humans and mice. Furthermore, PPARδ ligand activation by a high-fat diet or GW501516 (a highly selective, synthetic PPARδ ligand) in mutant KRASG12D (KRASmu) pancreatic epithelial cells strongly accelerates PanIN progression to PDAC. This …

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Progression Diagnosis With Intrinsic Cellular Patterns Via Unsupervised Clustering, Pingjun Chen, Siba El Hussein, Fuyong Xing, Muhammad Aminu, Aparajith Kannapiran, John D Hazle, L Jeffrey Medeiros, Ignacio I Wistuba, David Jaffray, Joseph D Khoury, Jia Wu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Identifying the progression of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) to accelerated CLL (aCLL) or transformation to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (Richter transformation; RT) has significant clinical implications as it prompts a major change in patient management. However, the differentiation between these disease phases may be challenging in routine practice. Unsupervised learning has gained increased attention because of its substantial potential in data intrinsic pattern discovery. Here, we demonstrate that cellular feature engineering, identifying cellular phenotypes via unsupervised clustering, provides the most robust analytic performance in analyzing digitized pathology slides (accuracy = 0.925, AUC = 0.978) when compared to alternative approaches, such …

Biliverdin Reductase Bridges Focal Adhesion Kinase To Src To Modulate Synaptic Signaling, Chirag Vasavda, Evan R Semenza, Jason Liew, Ruchita Kothari, Ryan S Dhindsa, Shruthi Shanmukha, Anthony Lin, Robert Tokhunts, Cristina Ricco, Adele M Snowman, Lauren Albacarys, Francesco Pastore, Cristian Ripoli, Claudio Grassi, Eugenio Barone, Michael D Kornberg, Xinzhong Dong, Bindu D Paul, Solomon H Snyder

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Synapses connect discrete neurons into vast networks that send, receive, and encode diverse forms of information. Synaptic function and plasticity—the neuronal process of adapting to diverse and variable inputs—depend on the dynamic nature of synaptic molecular components, which is mediated in part by cell adhesion signaling pathways. Here, we found that the enzyme biliverdin reductase (BVR) physically links together key focal adhesion signaling molecules at the synapse. BVR-null (BVR−/−) mice exhibited substantial deficits in learning and memory on neurocognitive tests, and hippocampal slices in which BVR was postsynaptically depleted showed deficits in electrophysiological responses to stimuli. …

Ezh2 Engages Tgfβ Signaling To Promote Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis Via Integrin Β1-Fak Activation, Lin Zhang, Jingkun Qu, Yutao Qi, Yimin Duan, Yu-Wen Huang, Zhifen Zhou, Ping Li, Jun Yao, Beibei Huang, Shuxing Zhang, Dihua Yu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Bone metastases occur in 50-70% of patients with late-stage breast cancers and effective therapies are needed. The expression of enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) is correlated with breast cancer metastasis, but its function in bone metastasis hasn't been well-explored. Here we report that EZH2 promotes osteolytic metastasis of breast cancer through regulating transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) signaling. EZH2 induces cancer cell proliferation and osteoclast maturation, whereas EZH2 knockdown decreases bone metastasis incidence and outgrowth in vivo. Mechanistically, EZH2 transcriptionally increases ITGB1, which encodes for integrin β1. Integrin β1 activates focal adhesion kinase (FAK), which phosphorylates TGFβ receptor type …

Bi-Order Multimodal Integration Of Single-Cell Data, Jinzhuang Dou, Shaoheng Liang, Vakul Mohanty, Qi Miao, Yuefan Huang, Qingnan Liang, Xuesen Cheng, Sangbae Kim, Jongsu Choi, Yumei Li, Li Li, May Daher, Rafet Basar, Katayoun Rezvani, Rui Chen, Ken Chen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Integration of single-cell multiomics profiles generated by different single-cell technologies from the same biological sample is still challenging. Previous approaches based on shared features have only provided approximate solutions. Here, we present a novel mathematical solution named bi-order canonical correlation analysis (bi-CCA), which extends the widely used CCA approach to iteratively align the rows and the columns between data matrices. Bi-CCA is generally applicable to combinations of any two single-cell modalities. Validations using co-assayed ground truth data and application to a CAR-NK study and a fetal muscle atlas demonstrate its capability in generating accurate multimodal co-embeddings and discovering cellular identity.

Central Nervous System Immune Interactome Is A Function Of Cancer Lineage, Tumor Microenvironment, And Stat3 Expression, Hinda Najem, Martina Ott, Cynthia Kassab, Arvind Rao, Ganesh Rao, Anantha Marisetty, Adam M Sonabend, Craig Horbinski, Roel Verhaak, Anand Shankar, Santhoshi N Krishnan, Frederick S Varn, Víctor A Arrieta, Pravesh Gupta, Sherise D Ferguson, Jason T Huse, Gregory N Fuller, James P Long, Daniel E Winkowski, Ben A Freiberg, Charles David James, Leonidas C Platanias, Maciej S Lesniak, Jared K Burks, Amy B Heimberger

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND

Immune cell profiling of primary and metastatic CNS tumors has been focused on the tumor, not the tumor microenvironment (TME), or has been analyzed via biopsies.

METHODS

En bloc resections of gliomas (n = 10) and lung metastases (n = 10) were analyzed via tissue segmentation and high-dimension Opal 7-color multiplex imaging. Single-cell RNA analyses were used to infer immune cell functionality.

RESULTS

Within gliomas, T cells were localized in the infiltrating edge and perivascular space of tumors, while residing mostly in the stroma of metastatic tumors. CD163⁺ macrophages were evident throughout the TME of metastatic …

Racial And Ethnic Differences In Genomic Profiling Of Early Onset Colorectal Cancer, David M Hein, Weiye Deng, Marylena Bleile, Syed Ali Kazmi, Brooke Rhead, Francisco M De La Vega, Amy L Jones, Radhika Kainthla, Wen Jiang, Brandi Cantarel, Nina N Sanford

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The incidence and mortality of early onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) is rising; outcomes appear to differ by race and ethnicity. We aimed to assess differences in mutational landscape and gene expression of EOCRC by racial and ethnic groups (non-Hispanic Asian, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic White, White Hispanic) using data from the American Association for Cancer Research Project GENIE (10.2) and University of Texas Southwestern, the latter enriched in Hispanic patients. All statistical tests were 2-sided. Of 1752 EOCRC patients, non-Hispanic Black patients had higher rates of KRAS mutations (60.9%; P = .001, q = 0.015), and non-Hispanic White and non-Hispanic Black …

The Ep300/Tp53 Pathway, A Suppressor Of The Hippo And Canonical Wnt Pathways, Is Activated In Human Hearts With Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy In The Absence Of Overt Heart Failure, Leila Rouhi, Siyang Fan, Sirisha M Cheedipudi, Aitana Braza-Boïls, Maria Sabater Molina, Yan Yao, Matthew J Robertson, Cristian Coarfa, Juan R Gimeno, Pilar Molina, Priyatansh Gurha, Esther Zorio, Ali J Marian

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

AIMS: Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a primary myocardial disease that typically manifests with cardiac arrhythmias, progressive heart failure, and sudden cardiac death (SCD). ACM is mainly caused by mutations in genes encoding desmosome proteins. Desmosomes are cell-cell adhesion structures and hubs for mechanosensing and mechanotransduction. The objective was to identify the dysregulated molecular and biological pathways in human ACM in the absence of overt heart failure.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Transcriptomes in the right ventricular endomyocardial biopsy samples from three independent individuals carrying truncating mutations in the DSP gene and five control samples were analysed by RNA-Seq (discovery group). These cases …

A Bayesian Group Sequential Design For Randomized Biosimilar Clinical Trials With Adaptive Information Borrowing From Historical Data, Wen Zhang, Zhiying Pan, Ying Yuan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

At the time of developing a biosimilar, the reference product has been on market for years and thus ample data are available on its efficacy and characteristics. We develop a Bayesian adaptive design for randomized biosimilar clinical trials to leverage the rich historical data on the reference product. This design takes a group sequential approach. At each interim, we employ the elastic meta-analytic-predictive (EMAP) prior methodology to adaptively borrow information from the historical data of the reference product to make go/no-go decision based on Bayesian posterior probabilities. In addition, the randomization ratio between the test and reference arms is adaptively …

Systems Biology Approach To Functionally Assess The Clostridioides Difficile Pangenome Reveals Genetic Diversity With Discriminatory Power, Charles J Norsigian, Heather A Danhof, Colleen K Brand, Firas S Midani, Jared T Broddrick, Tor C Savidge, Robert A Britton, Bernhard O Palsson, Jennifer K Spinler, Jonathan M Monk

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Combatting Clostridioides difficile infections, a dominant cause of hospital-associated infections with incidence and resulting deaths increasing worldwide, is complicated by the frequent emergence of new virulent strains. Here, we employ whole-genome sequencing, high-throughput phenotypic screenings, and genome-scale models of metabolism to evaluate the genetic diversity of 451 strains of C. difficile. Constructing the C. difficile pangenome based on this set revealed 9,924 distinct gene clusters, of which 2,899 (29%) are defined as core, 2,968 (30%) are defined as unique, and the remaining 4,057 (41%) are defined as accessory. We develop a strain typing method, sequence typing by accessory genome (STAG), …

Bhlhe40 Regulates The T-Cell Effector Function Required For Tumor Microenvironment Remodeling And Immune Checkpoint Therapy Efficacy, Avery J Salmon, Alexander S Shavkunov, Qi Miao, Nicholas N Jarjour, Sunita Keshari, Ekaterina Esaulova, Charmelle D Williams, Jeffrey P Ward, Anna M Highsmith, Josué E Pineda, Reshma Taneja, Ken Chen, Brian T Edelson, Matthew M Gubin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Immune checkpoint therapy (ICT) using antibody blockade of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) or cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) can provoke T cell-dependent antitumor activity that generates durable clinical responses in some patients. The epigenetic and transcriptional features that T cells require for efficacious ICT remain to be fully elucidated. Herein, we report that anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 ICT induce upregulation of the transcription factor BHLHE40 in tumor antigen-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T cells and that T cells require BHLHE40 for effective ICT in mice bearing immune-edited tumors. Single-cell RNA sequencing of intratumoral immune cells in BHLHE40-deficient mice revealed differential …

Cross-Species Genetic Screens Identify Transglutaminase 5 As A Regulator Of Polyglutamine-Expanded Ataxin-1, Won-Seok Lee, Ismael Al-Ramahi, Hyun-Hwan Jeong, Youjin Jang, Tao Lin, Carolyn J Adamski, Laura A Lavery, Smruti Rath, Ronald Richman, Vitaliy V Bondar, Elizabeth Alcala, Jean-Pierre Revelli, Harry T Orr, Zhandong Liu, Juan Botas, Huda Y Zoghbi

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Many neurodegenerative disorders are caused by abnormal accumulation of misfolded proteins. In spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), accumulation of polyglutamine-expanded (polyQ-expanded) ataxin-1 (ATXN1) causes neuronal toxicity. Lowering total ATXN1, especially the polyQ-expanded form, alleviates disease phenotypes in mice, but the molecular mechanism by which the mutant ATXN1 is specifically modulated is not understood. Here, we identified 22 mutant ATXN1 regulators by performing a cross-species screen of 7787 and 2144 genes in human cells and Drosophila eyes, respectively. Among them, transglutaminase 5 (TG5) preferentially regulated mutant ATXN1 over the WT protein. TG enzymes catalyzed cross-linking of ATXN1 in a polyQ-length–dependent manner, …

The Genomic Alterations In Glioblastoma Influence The Levels Of Csf Metabolites, Wilfredo De Jesús-Rojas, José Muñiz-Hernández, Francisco Alvarado-Huerta, Jesús M Meléndez-Montañez, Arnaldo J Santos-López, Ricardo A Mosquera

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) has been linked to more than 50 genes that cause a spectrum of clinical symptoms, including newborn respiratory distress, sinopulmonary infections, and laterality abnormalities. Although the RSPH4A (c.921+3_6delAAGT) pathogenic variant has been related to Hispanic groups with Puerto Rican ancestry, it is uncertain how frequently other PCD-implicated genes are present on the island. A retrospective chart review of n = 127 genetic reports from Puerto Rican subjects who underwent genetic screening for PCD variants was conducted from 2018 to 2022. Of 127 subjects, 29.1% subjects presented PCD pathogenic variants, and 13.4% were homozygous for the RSPH4A …

Overall Survival In Phase 3 Clinical Trials And The Surveillance, Epidemiology, And End Results Database In Patients With Metastatic Colorectal Cancer, 1986-2016: A Systematic Review, Chan Shen, Daniel Tannenbaum, Robert Horn, Jane Rogers, Cathy Eng, Shouhao Zhou, Benny Johnson, Scott Kopetz, Van Morris, Michael Overman, Christine Parseghian, George J Chang, Maria A Lopez-Olivo, Raghav Kanwal, Lee M Ellis, Arvind Dasari

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Importance: Phase 3 trials for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) have been conducted with varying designs and often with surrogate end points for overall survival (OS).

Objectives: To critically examine the factors associated with clinically relevant improvement in OS (defined as ≥2 months) in these trials and to evaluate their association with outcomes reflected in Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry data.

Evidence review: Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials Register, and the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were searched for phase 3 trials of systemic therapy for patients with mCRC by decade (1986-1996, …

Genomic Correlates Of Outcome In Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy For Metastatic Melanoma, Caitlin A Creasy, Yuzhong Jeff Meng, Marie-Andrée Forget, Tatiana Karpinets, Katarzyna Tomczak, Chip Stewart, Carlos A Torres-Cabala, Shari Pilon-Thomas, Amod A Sarnaik, James J Mulé, Levi Garraway, Matias Bustos, Jianhua Zhang, Sapna P Patel, Adi Diab, Isabella C Glitza, Cassian Yee, Hussein Tawbi, Michael K Wong, Jennifer Mcquade, Dave S B Hoon, Michael A Davies, Patrick Hwu, Rodabe N Amaria, Cara Haymaker, Rameen Beroukhim, Chantale Bernatchez

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) historically yields a 40%-50% response rate in metastatic melanoma. However, the determinants of outcome are largely unknown.

Experimental design: We investigated tumor-based genomic correlates of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and response to therapy by interrogating tumor samples initially collected to generate TIL infusion products.

Results: Whole-exome sequencing (WES) data from 64 samples indicated a positive correlation between neoantigen load and OS, but not PFS or response to therapy. RNA sequencing analysis of 34 samples showed that expression of PDE1C, RTKN2, and NGFR was enriched in responders who had improved …

Diminished Immune Surveillance During Histologic Progression Of Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms Offers A Therapeutic Opportunity For Cancer Interception, Sharia Hernandez, Edwin Roger Parra, Naohiro Uraoka, Ximing Tang, Yu Shen, Wei Qiao, Mei Jiang, Shanyu Zhang, Barbara Mino, Wei Lu, Renganayaki Pandurengan, Cara Haymaker, Kajsa Affolter, Courtney L Scaife, Michele Yip-Schneider, C Max Schmidt, Matthew A Firpo, Sean J Mulvihill, Eugene J Koay, Huamin Wang, Ignacio I Wistuba, Anirban Maitra, Luisa M Solis, Subrata Sen

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN) are bona fide precursors to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). While genomic alterations during multistep IPMN progression have been well cataloged, the accompanying changes within the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) have not been comprehensively studied. Herein, we investigated TIME-related alterations during IPMN progression, using multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) coupled with high-resolution image analyses.

Experimental design: Two sets of formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples from surgically resected IPMNs were analyzed. The training set of 30 samples consisted of 11 low-grade IPMN (LG-IPMN), 17 high-grade IPMN (HG-IPMN), and 2 IPMN with PDAC, while a validation set of 93 samples …

The Role Of Obesity In Macrophage-Mediated Mechanisms Promoting Early-Onset Colon Cancer., Katharina Marietta Scheurlen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Early-onset colon cancer (EOCC) is a leading cause of cancer death among people younger than 50 years of age in the United States and is associated with metabolic dysfunction and obesity. Anti-inflammatory tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) and low Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor Gamma (PPARγ) gene expression in colon cancer (CC) tissue promote tumor progression and decreased patient survival. Obesity-related hormones, such as leptin and adiponectin, have the potential to affect gene expression in TAM to promote CC progression and thereby link obesity and EOCC. The aim of this project was to identify target genes in human CC and to investigate the …

Curated Variation Benchmarks For Challenging Medically Relevant Autosomal Genes, Justin Wagner, Nathan D Olson, Lindsay Harris, Jennifer Mcdaniel, Haoyu Cheng, Arkarachai Fungtammasan, Yih-Chii Hwang, Richa Gupta, Aaron M Wenger, William J Rowell, Ziad M Khan, Jesse Farek, Yiming Zhu, Aishwarya Pisupati, Medhat Mahmoud, Chunlin Xiao, Byunggil Yoo, Sayed Mohammad Ebrahim Sahraeian, Danny E Miller, David Jáspez, José M Lorenzo-Salazar, Adrián Muñoz-Barrera, Luis A Rubio-Rodríguez, Carlos Flores, Giuseppe Narzisi, Uday Shanker Evani, Wayne E Clarke, Joyce Lee, Christopher E Mason, Stephen E Lincoln, Karen H Miga, Mark T W Ebbert, Alaina Shumate, Heng Li, Chen-Shan Chin, Justin M Zook, Fritz J Sedlazeck

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The repetitive nature and complexity of some medically relevant genes poses a challenge for their accurate analysis in a clinical setting. The Genome in a Bottle Consortium has provided variant benchmark sets, but these exclude nearly 400 medically relevant genes due to their repetitiveness or polymorphic complexity. Here, we characterize 273 of these 395 challenging autosomal genes using a haplotype-resolved whole-genome assembly. This curated benchmark reports over 17,000 single-nucleotide variations, 3,600 insertions and deletions and 200 structural variations each for human genome reference GRCh37 and GRCh38 across HG002. We show that false duplications in either GRCh37 or GRCh38 result in …

Multi-Ancestry Genetic Study Of Type 2 Diabetes Highlights The Power Of Diverse Populations For Discovery And Translation, Anubha Mahajan, Cassandra N Spracklen, Weihua Zhang, Maggie C Y Ng, Lauren E Petty, Hidetoshi Kitajima, Grace Z Yu, Sina Rüeger, Leo Speidel, Young Jin Kim, Momoko Horikoshi, Josep M Mercader, Daniel Taliun, Sanghoon Moon, Soo-Heon Kwak, Neil R Robertson, Nigel W Rayner, Marie Loh, Bong-Jo Kim, Joshua Chiou, Irene Miguel-Escalada, Pietro Della Briotta Parolo, Kuang Lin, Fiona Bragg, Michael H Preuss, Fumihiko Takeuchi, Jana Nano, Xiuqing Guo, Amel Lamri, Masahiro Nakatochi, Robert A Scott, Jung-Jin Lee, Alicia Huerta-Chagoya, Mariaelisa Graff, Jin-Fang Chai, Esteban J Parra, Jie Yao, Lawrence F Bielak, Yasuharu Tabara, Yang Hai, Valgerdur Steinthorsdottir, James P Cook, Mart Kals, Niels Grarup, Ellen M Schmidt, Ian Pan, Tamar Sofer, Matthias Wuttke, Chloe Sarnowski, Christian Gieger, Darryl Nousome, Stella Trompet, Jirong Long, Meng Sun, Lin Tong, Wei-Min Chen, Meraj Ahmad, Raymond Noordam, Victor J Y Lim, Claudia H T Tam, Yoonjung Yoonie Joo, Chien-Hsiun Chen, Laura M Raffield, Cécile Lecoeur, Bram Peter Prins, Aude Nicolas, Lisa R Yanek, Guanjie Chen, Richard A Jensen, Salman Tajuddin, Edmond K Kabagambe, Ping An, Anny H Xiang, Hyeok Sun Choi, Brian E Cade, Jingyi Tan, Jack Flanagan, Fernando Abaitua, Linda S Adair, Adebowale Adeyemo, Carlos A Aguilar-Salinas, Masato Akiyama, Sonia S Anand, Alain Bertoni, Zheng Bian, Jette Bork-Jensen, Ivan Brandslund, Jennifer A Brody, Chad M Brummett, Thomas A Buchanan, Mickaël Canouil, Juliana C N Chan, Li-Ching Chang, Miao-Li Chee, Ji Chen, Shyh-Huei Chen, Yuan-Tsong Chen, Zhengming Chen, Lee-Ming Chuang, Mary Cushman, Swapan K Das, H Janaka De Silva, George Dedoussis, Latchezar Dimitrov, Ayo P Doumatey, Shufa Du, Qing Duan, Kai-Uwe Eckardt, Leslie S Emery, Daniel S Evans, Michele K Evans, Krista Fischer, James S Floyd, Ian Ford, Myriam Fornage, Oscar H Franco, Timothy M Frayling, Barry I Freedman, Christian Fuchsberger, Pauline Genter, Hertzel C Gerstein, Vilmantas Giedraitis, Clicerio González-Villalpando, Maria Elena González-Villalpando, Mark O Goodarzi, Penny Gordon-Larsen, David Gorkin, Myron Gross, Yu Guo, Sophie Hackinger, Sohee Han, Andrew T Hattersley, Christian Herder, Annie-Green Howard, Willa Hsueh, Mengna Huang, Wei Huang, Yi-Jen Hung, Mi Yeong Hwang, Chii-Min Hwu, Sahoko Ichihara, Mohammad Arfan Ikram, Martin Ingelsson, Md Tariqul Islam, Masato Isono, Hye-Mi Jang, Farzana Jasmine, Guozhi Jiang, Jost B Jonas, Marit E Jørgensen, Torben Jørgensen, Yoichiro Kamatani, Fouad R Kandeel, Anuradhani Kasturiratne, Tomohiro Katsuya, Varinderpal Kaur, Takahisa Kawaguchi, Jacob M Keaton, Abel N Kho, Chiea-Chuen Khor, Muhammad G Kibriya, Duk-Hwan Kim, Katsuhiko Kohara, Jennifer Kriebel, Florian Kronenberg, Johanna Kuusisto, Kristi Läll, Leslie A Lange, Myung-Shik Lee, Nanette R Lee, Aaron Leong, Liming Li, Yun Li, Ruifang Li-Gao, Symen Ligthart, Cecilia M Lindgren, Allan Linneberg, Ching-Ti Liu, Jianjun Liu, Adam E Locke, Tin Louie, Jian'an Luan, Andrea O Luk, Xi Luo, Jun Lv, Valeriya Lyssenko, Vasiliki Mamakou, K Radha Mani, Thomas Meitinger, Andres Metspalu, Andrew D Morris, Girish N Nadkarni, Jerry L Nadler, Michael A Nalls, Uma Nayak, Suraj S Nongmaithem, Ioanna Ntalla, Yukinori Okada, Lorena Orozco, Sanjay R Patel, Mark A Pereira, Annette Peters, Fraser J Pirie, Bianca Porneala, Gauri Prasad, Sebastian Preissl, Laura J Rasmussen-Torvik, Alexander P Reiner, Michael Roden, Rebecca Rohde, Kathryn Roll, Charumathi Sabanayagam, Maike Sander, Kevin Sandow, Naveed Sattar, Sebastian Schönherr, Claudia Schurmann, Mohammad Shahriar, Jinxiu Shi, Dong Mun Shin, Daniel Shriner, Jennifer A Smith, Wing Yee So, Alena Stančáková, Adrienne M Stilp, Konstantin Strauch, Ken Suzuki, Atsushi Takahashi, Kent D Taylor, Barbara Thorand, Gudmar Thorleifsson, Unnur Thorsteinsdottir, Brian Tomlinson, Jason M Torres, Fuu-Jen Tsai, Jaakko Tuomilehto, Teresa Tusie-Luna, Miriam S Udler, Adan Valladares-Salgado, Rob M Van Dam, Jan B Van Klinken, Rohit Varma, Marijana Vujkovic, Niels Wacher-Rodarte, Eleanor Wheeler, Eric A Whitsel, Ananda R Wickremasinghe, Ko Willems Van Dijk, Daniel R Witte, Chittaranjan S Yajnik, Ken Yamamoto, Toshimasa Yamauchi, Loïc Yengo, Kyungheon Yoon, Canqing Yu, Jian-Min Yuan, Salim Yusuf, Liang Zhang, Wei Zheng, Finngen, Emerge Consortium, Leslie J Raffel, Michiya Igase, Eli Ipp, Susan Redline, Yoon Shin Cho, Lars Lind, Michael A Province, Craig L Hanis, Patricia A Peyser, Erik Ingelsson, Alan B Zonderman, Bruce M Psaty, Ya-Xing Wang, Charles N Rotimi, Diane M Becker, Fumihiko Matsuda, Yongmei Liu, Eleftheria Zeggini, Mitsuhiro Yokota, Stephen S Rich, Charles Kooperberg, James S Pankow, James C Engert, Yii-Der Ida Chen, Philippe Froguel, James G Wilson, Wayne H H Sheu, Sharon L R Kardia, Jer-Yuarn Wu, M Geoffrey Hayes, Ronald C W Ma, Tien-Yin Wong, Leif Groop, Dennis O Mook-Kanamori, Giriraj R Chandak, Francis S Collins, Dwaipayan Bharadwaj, Guillaume Paré, Michèle M Sale, Habibul Ahsan, Ayesha A Motala, Xiao-Ou Shu, Kyong-Soo Park, J Wouter Jukema, Miguel Cruz, Roberta Mckean-Cowdin, Harald Grallert, Ching-Yu Cheng, Erwin P Bottinger, Abbas Dehghan, E-Shyong Tai, Josée Dupuis, Norihiro Kato, Markku Laakso, Anna Köttgen, Woon-Puay Koh, Colin N A Palmer, Simin Liu, Goncalo Abecasis, Jaspal S Kooner, Ruth J F Loos, Kari E North, Christopher A Haiman, Jose C Florez, Danish Saleheen, Torben Hansen, Oluf Pedersen, Reedik Mägi, Claudia Langenberg, Nicholas J Wareham, Shiro Maeda, Takashi Kadowaki, Juyoung Lee, Iona Y Millwood, Robin G Walters, Kari Stefansson, Simon R Myers, Jorge Ferrer, Kyle J Gaulton, James B Meigs, Karen L Mohlke, Anna L Gloyn, Donald W Bowden, Jennifer E Below, John C Chambers, Xueling Sim, Michael Boehnke, Jerome I Rotter, Mark I Mccarthy, Andrew P Morris

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We assembled an ancestrally diverse collection of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in 180,834 affected individuals and 1,159,055 controls (48.9% non-European descent) through the Diabetes Meta-Analysis of Trans-Ethnic association studies (DIAMANTE) Consortium. Multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis identified 237 loci attaining stringent genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10-9), which were delineated to 338 distinct association signals. Fine-mapping of these signals was enhanced by the increased sample size and expanded population diversity of the multi-ancestry meta-analysis, which localized 54.4% of T2D associations to a single variant with >50% posterior probability. This improved fine-mapping enabled systematic assessment of candidate causal genes and molecular mechanisms through which T2D associations are mediated, laying the foundations for functional investigations. Multi-ancestry genetic risk scores enhanced transferability of T2D prediction across diverse populations. Our study provides a step toward more effective clinical translation of T2D GWAS …