Explore the vast range of titles available.

NOTCH signaling suppresses tumor growth and proliferation in several types of stratified epithelia. Here, we show that missense mutations in NOTCH1 and NOTCH2 found in human bladder cancers result in loss of function. In murine models, genetic ablation of the NOTCH pathway accelerated bladder tumorigenesis and promoted the formation of squamous cell carcinomas, with areas of mesenchymal features. Using bladder cancer cells, we determined that the NOTCH pathway stabilizes the epithelial phenotype through its effector HES1 and, consequently, loss of NOTCH activity favors the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Evaluation of human bladder cancer samples revealed that tumors with low levels of HES1 present mesenchymal features and are more aggressive. Together, our results indicate that NOTCH serves as a tumor suppressor in the bladder and that loss of this pathway promotes mesenchymal and invasive features.

Targeted therapies are the state of the art in oncology today, and every year new Tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) are developed for preclinical research and clinical trials, but few of them really change the therapeutic scenario. Difficulties, either to find antigens that are solely expressed in tumors or the generation of good binders to these antigens, represent a major bottleneck. Specialized cellular mechanisms, such as differential splicing and glycosylation processes, are a good source of neo-antigen expression. Changes in these processes generate surface proteins that, instead of showing decreased or increased antigen expression driven by enhanced mRNA processing, are aberrant in nature and therefore more specific targets to elicit a precise anti-tumor therapy. Here, we present promising TAAs demonstrated to be potential targets for cancer monitoring, targeted therapy and the generation of new immunotherapy tools, such as recombinant antibodies and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell (CAR-T) or Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Engineered Natural Killer (CAR-NK) for specific tumor killing, in a wide variety of tumor types. Specifically, this review is a detailed update on TAAs CD44v6, STn and O-GD2, describing their origin as well as their current and potential use as disease biomarker and therapeutic target in a diversity of tumor types.

Non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) represents a crucial problem for the national health care systems due to its high rates of recurrence and the consequent need of frequent follow-ups. Here, gene expression analyses in patients diagnosed as NMIBC were performed to determine those molecular pathways involved in tumor initiation, finding that both MYC and E2F are up regulated and helps to tumor initiation and progression. Our results also support an important involvement of alternative splicing events, modifying key pathways to favour bladder tumor evolution. Finally, since MDM2 showed differential exon usage, mutations in TP53 and its protein expression have been also studied in the same patients. Our data support that recurrence is epigenetically mediated and favoured by an increase protein expression of TP53, which appears more frequently mutated in advanced stages and grades, being associated to a worse prognosis. Therefore, TP53 mutational status could be used as a potential biomarker in the first stages of NMIBC to predict recurrence and prognosis.

Although Ras genes are frequently mutated in human tumors, these mutations are uncommon in breast cancer. However, many breast tumors show evidences of Ras pathway activation. In this manuscript, we have analyzed and characterized mouse mammary tumors generated by random Sleeping Beauty transposon mutagenesis and identify ERAS -a member of the RAS family silenced in adult tissues- as a new gene involved in progression and malignancy of breast cancer. Forced expression of ERAS in human non-transformed mammary gland cells induces a process of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and an increase in stem cells markers; these changes are mediated by miR-200c downregulation. ERAS expression in human tumorigenic mammary cells leads to the generation of larger and less differentiated tumors in xenotransplant experiments. Immunohistochemical, RT-qPCR and bioinformatics analysis of human samples show that ERAS is aberrantly expressed in 8–10% of breast tumors and this expression is associated with distant metastasis and reduced metastasis-free survival. In summary, our results reveal that inappropriate activation of ERAS may be important in the development of a subset of breast tumors. These findings open the possibility of new specific treatments for this subset of ERAS-expressing tumors.

Both clinical and experimental observations show that the skin is affected by the thyroidal status. In hypothyroid patients the epidermis is thin and alopecia is common, indicating that thyroidal status might influence not only skin proliferation but also hair growth. We demonstrate here that the thyroid hormone receptors (TRs) mediate these effects of the thyroid hormones on the skin. Mice lacking TRα1 and TRβ (the main thyroid hormone binding isoforms) display impaired hair cycling associated to a decrease in follicular hair cell proliferation. This was also observed in hypothyroid mice, indicating the important role of the hormone-bound receptors in hair growth. In contrast, the individual deletion of either TRα1 or TRβ did not impair hair cycling, revealing an overlapping or compensatory role of the receptors in follicular cell proliferation. In support of the role of the receptors in hair growth, TRα1/TRβ-deficient mice developed alopecia after serial depilation. These mice also presented a wound-healing defect, with retarded re-epithelialization and wound gaping, associated to impaired keratinocyte proliferation. These results reinforce the idea that the thyroid hormone nuclear receptors play an important role on skin homeostasis and suggest that they could be targets for the treatment of cutaneous pathologies.

Background Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been claimed as key molecular players in gene expression regulation, being involved in diverse epigenetic processes. They are aberrantly expressed in various tumors, but their exact role in bladder cancer is still obscure. We have recently found a major role of the Polycomb repression complex in recurrence of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Here, we report the xpression of Polycomb-related lncRNAs:antisense noncoding RNA in the INK4 locus (ANRIL) and HOX antisense intergenic RNA ( HOTAIR ) in these tumors. Findings We studied a dataset of non-invasive bladder cancer samples by quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR) and analyzed also invasive bladder cancer samples using TCGA data. Our results showed that, while ANRIL seemed not to have a determining role, an increased HOTAIR expression appeared in recurrent and high-graded tumors associated with poor prognosis. In addition, through genome-wide transcriptome analyses, we observed that HOTAIR-EZH2 -complex-regulated genes can efficiently discriminate between non-tumoral, recurrent, and non-recurrent bladder cancer samples. We also observed a significant correlation between EZH2 and HOTAIR expression levels. Using overexpression, knockdown, and pharmacological approaches in bladder cancer cell lines, we also observed that EZH2 regulates HOTAIR expression. Conclusions Our findings indicate that HOTAIR expression has prognostic value for bladder cancer progression, recurrence, and survival and suggest that HOTAIR plays active roles in modulating the cancer epigenome, becoming an interesting candidate as a target for cancer diagnosis and therapy. The observed HOTAIR regulation by EZH2 and the possibility of modulating EZH2 activity with specific inhibitors open new possible paths to be explored in bladder cancer therapy.

Bladder cancer is lethal in its advanced, muscle-invasive phase with very limited therapeutic advances 1 , 2 . Recent molecular characterization has defined new (epi)genetic drivers and potential targets for bladder cancer 3 , 4 . The immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown remarkable efficacy but only in a limited fraction of bladder cancer patients 5 – 8 . Here, we show that high G9a ( EHMT2 ) expression is associated with poor clinical outcome in bladder cancer and that targeting G9a/DNMT methyltransferase activity with a novel inhibitor (CM-272) induces apoptosis and immunogenic cell death. Using an immunocompetent quadruple-knockout ( Pten loxP / loxP ; Trp53 loxP / loxP ; Rb1 loxP / loxP ; Rbl1 −/− ) transgenic mouse model of aggressive metastatic, muscle-invasive bladder cancer, we demonstrate that CM-272 + cisplatin treatment results in statistically significant regression of established tumors and metastases. The antitumor effect is significantly improved when CM-272 is combined with anti-programmed cell death ligand 1, even in the absence of cisplatin. These effects are associated with an endogenous antitumor immune response and immunogenic cell death with the conversion of a cold immune tumor into a hot tumor. Finally, increased G9a expression was associated with resistance to programmed cell death protein 1 inhibition in a cohort of patients with bladder cancer. In summary, these findings support new and promising opportunities for the treatment of bladder cancer using a combination of epigenetic inhibitors and immune checkpoint blockade. Inhibition of histone and DNA methyltransferase activity enhances sensitivity to platinum-based and immunotherapy in a novel transgenic mouse model of metastatic bladder cancer.

Bladder cancer (BC) is the tenth most frequent cancer worldwide and is associated with high mortality when diagnosed in its most aggressive form, which is not reverted by the current treatment options. Thus, the development of new therapeutic strategies, either alternative or complementary to the current ones, is of major importance. The disruption of normal epigenetic mechanisms, namely, DNA methylation, is a known early event in cancer development. Consequently, DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitors constitute a promising therapeutic target for the treatment of BC. Although these inhibitors, mainly nucleoside analogues such as 5-azacytidine (5-aza) and decitabine (DAC), cause re-expression of tumor suppressor genes, inhibition of tumor cell growth, and increased apoptosis in BC experimental models and clinical trials, they also show important drawbacks that prevent their use as a valuable option for the treatment of BC. However, their combination with chemotherapy and/or immune-checkpoint inhibitors could aid in their implementation in the clinical practice. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of the studies exploring the effects of DNA methylation inhibition using DNMTs inhibitors in BC, from in vitro and in vivo studies to clinical trials.

Retinoids play an important role in skin homeostasis and when administered topically cause skin hyperplasia, abnormal epidermal differentiation and inflammation. Thyroidal status in humans also influences skin morphology and function and we have recently shown that the thyroid hormone receptors (TRs) are required for a normal proliferative response to 12-O-tetradecanolyphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) in mice. We have compared the epidermal response of mice lacking the thyroid hormone receptor binding isoforms TRα1 and TRβ to retinoids and TPA. Reduced hyperplasia and a decreased number of proliferating cells in the basal layer in response to 9-cis-RA and TPA were found in the epidermis of TR-deficient mice. Nuclear levels of proteins important for cell proliferation were altered, and expression of keratins 5 and 6 was also reduced, concomitantly with the decreased number of epidermal cell layers. In control mice the retinoid (but not TPA) induced parakeratosis and diminished expression of keratin 10 and loricrin, markers of early and terminal epidermal differentiation, respectively. This reduction was more accentuated in the TR deficient animals, whereas they did not present parakeratosis. Therefore, TRs modulate both the proliferative response to retinoids and their inhibitory effects on skin differentiation. Reduced proliferation, which was reversed upon thyroxine treatment, was also found in hypothyroid mice, demonstrating that thyroid hormone binding to TRs is required for the normal response to retinoids. In addition, the mRNA levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNFα and IL-6 and the chemotactic proteins S1008A and S1008B were significantly elevated in the skin of TR knock-out mice after TPA or 9-cis-RA treatment and immune cell infiltration was also enhanced. Since retinoids are commonly used for the treatment of skin disorders, these results demonstrating that TRs regulate skin proliferation, differentiation and inflammation in response to these compounds could have not only physiological but also therapeutic implications.

Bladder Cancer (BC) represents a clinical and social challenge due to its high incidence and recurrence rates, as well as the limited advances in effective disease management. Currently, a combination of cytology and cystoscopy is the routinely used methodology for diagnosis, prognosis and disease surveillance. However, both the poor sensitivity of cytology tests as well as the high invasiveness and big variation in tumour stage and grade interpretation using cystoscopy, emphasizes the urgent need for improvements in BC clinical guidance. Liquid biopsy represents a new non-invasive approach that has been extensively studied over the last decade and holds great promise. Even though its clinical use is still compromised, multiple studies have recently focused on the potential application of biomarkers in liquid biopsies for BC, including circulating tumour cells and DNA, RNAs, proteins and peptides, metabolites and extracellular vesicles. In this review, we summarize the present knowledge on the different types of biomarkers, their potential use in liquid biopsy and clinical applications in BC.