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Title: Jiangsu Nanjing – Lawrence Berkeley Life Sciences Center for Translational Medicine (CRADA AWD00000392)

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1576564· OSTI ID:1576564

Project 1: Our previous work demonstrated that the CES biomarker can be an approximate measure for the levels of chromosomal instability (CIN) in cancer, and that the CES (for Centromere and kinetochore gene Expression Score) biomarker effectively predicts which cancer patients benefit from adjuvant chemotherapies in lung and other cancer types. Such a utility can potentially reduce overtreatment that is common in lung cancer treatment. We determined performance of the multiplex Quantigene RNA assay platform for measuring mRNA levels of CES genes using clinical tumor samples. These experiments determined sensitivity, specificity and detection limit of 12 CES genes and 5 control genes using clinical tumor samples with paired normal tissue samples. We determined how sample concentration and storage conditions affect measurement sensitivity and specificity, and whether sample storage over time affects result reproducibility. Importantly, we confirmed that early stage lung cancer CES values are significantly higher than those of paired normal tissues in all cases. This result greatly extended our bioinformatic data mining by confirming that we can measure CES values directly from patient tumor tissue, and that tumors have higher CES values than normal tissues. Unfortunately, our CRADA partner in China did not finish measuring CES expression levels for a larger group of ~100 tumor samples, due to the long period time required for human subject review in China. This delay prevented us from generating enough additional data to generate a significant statistical model. We finished analyzing all the data acquired during the CRADA, and are trying to work collaboratively with the Shanghai University Lung Cancer Hospital to complete the analysis of more tumor samples. Although no publications have resulted from this research, the findings are crucial for ongoing efforts to obtain funding to develop the technology to address problems in deciding on appropriate treatment regimens for individual patients, in clinical settings. Project 2: The overarching milestones of CRADA Project 2 were to investigate the role of FAM83 family members in cancer progression. Two publications resulted from this work which are highlighted below. The first major goal of the CRADA was to broadly assess the role of FAM83 family oncogenes in human cancer using a multi-omic bioinformatic approach (Snijders et al 2017 Mol. Oncol 11). The second major goal was to specifically assess the role of FAM83D in a cancer progression and metastasis (Yin et al 2019 Cell Oncol; in revision). Role of FAM83 family oncogenes in human cancers Recent studies from our laboratory as well as other groups have demonstrated that FAM83 family members have oncogenic properties and have significantly elevated expression levels in multiple human tumor types, including breast cancers (BC). We performed an integrative multi-omics bio-informatic analysis of the role of FAM83 family oncogenes in human cancers. Our findings were published in the journal Molecular Oncology (Snijders et al; Mol Oncol. 2017 Feb;11(2):167-179). Highlights from this manuscript are: • Transcriptional levels of FAM83 family members are frequently and dramatically elevated across tumor types in human • DNA copy number increase appears to be a potential mechanism for increased expression of FAM83 genes • FAM83 family gene signature is associated with poor survival across human tumor types • FAM83 gene alterations are significantly correlated with TP53, PIK3CA and Ecadherin mutations. In conclusion, this analysis of FAM83 family members opened up a new horizon for further understanding the significance of FAM83 genes in cancer and clinical applications in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. Role of FAM83D in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) metastasis and its impact on chemotherapy. Lung cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80~85% of all diagnosed lung cancer cases, one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. FAM83D has been proposed as an oncoprotein in several types of human cancer, yet its role and molecular mechanism in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) metastasis and its impact on chemotherapy are poorly understood. We evaluated the expression of FAM83D in NSCLC cells and cancerous tissues and its prognostic significance, then investigated the effect of FAM83D on tumorigenic phenotypes such as cell proliferation, EMT and invasive capability, and finally assessed impact of FAM83D on NSCLC chemo-drug resistance. The results of this study are currently in revision at the journal Cellular Oncology. Highlights from this manuscript are: • FAM83D expression is elevated in NSCLC cells and tissues and associated with poor prognosis • FAM83D promotes NSCLC cell proliferation • FAM83D induces EMT in NSCLC cells • FAM83D promotes NSCLC cell migration and invasion • FAM83D promotes EMT and invasive capability of NSCLC cells by regulating AKT/mTOR pathway • FAM83D silencing increases cisplatin sensitivity of NSCLC cells In summary, this second study demonstrated for the first time that FAM83D promoted EMT and metastasis of NSCLC cells through AKT/mTOR signal pathway as well as increased the sensitivity of NSCLC to cisplatin. This study may provide potential targets for advanced NSCLC treatment and personalized therapy.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Nanjing Biopharmaceutical Valley Development Center (China)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1576564
Report Number(s):
LBNL-2001253; AWD00000392; LBNL-CRADA-AWD00000392
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English