Bin Wang

Clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common histological type of RCC. To investigate the intratumoral heterogeneity of ccRCC, we analyzed single-cell RNA-sequencing data and identified 15 major cell types, along with 39 subgroups of cells derived from tumor or non-malignant tissues, and confirmed their presence by immunofluorescence staining in tissue chips. In this study, we verified that T cell exhaustion was the key factor responsible for the immunosuppressive property of ccRCC tissues, which was significantly related to poor prognosis. We also found that abnormal metabolic patterns occurred not only in cancer cells, but also in tumor-infiltrating stromal cells. Based on the fraction of each cell cluster detected by CIBERSORTx, 533 patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) KIRC dataset were divided into three groups. One group, which showed a lesser proportion of activated CD8+ cells and greater proportion of exhausted CD8+ cells, was associated with a poor prognosis. Hence, the blockade of immunosuppressive checkpoints, not only PD-1, but also LAG3, TIM-3, and other inhibitory checkpoints, could serve as a potential target for ccRCC immunotherapy. Our work will further the understanding of the heterogeneity among ccRCC tissues and provide novel strategies for treating ccRCC. Clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most common histological type of RCC. To investigate the intratumoral heterogeneity of ccRCC, we analyzed single-cell RNA-sequencing data and identified 15 major cell types, along with 39 subgroups of cells derived from tumor or non-malignant tissues, and confirmed their presence by immunofluorescence staining in tissue chips. In this study, we verified that T cell exhaustion was the key factor responsible for the immunosuppressive property of ccRCC tissues, which was significantly related to poor prognosis. We also found that abnormal metabolic patterns occurred not only in cancer cells, but also in tumor-infiltrating stromal cells. Based on the fraction of each cell cluster detected by CIBERSORTx, 533 patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) KIRC dataset were divided into three groups. One group, which showed a lesser proportion of activated CD8+ cells and greater proportion of exhausted CD8+ cells, was associated with a poor prognosis. Hence, the blockade of immunosuppressive checkpoints, not only PD-1, but also LAG3, TIM-3, and other inhibitory checkpoints, could serve as a potential target for ccRCC immunotherapy. Our work will further the understanding of the heterogeneity among ccRCC tissues and provide novel strategies for treating ccRCC.

Consequences of the obesity epidemic on cancer morbidity and mortality are not fully appreciated. Obesity is a risk factor for many cancers, but the mechanisms by which it contributes to cancer development and patient outcome have yet to be fully elucidated. Here, we examined the effects of coculturing human-derived adipocytes with established and primary breast cancer cells on tumorigenic potential. We found that the interaction between adipocytes and cancer cells increased the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines. Prolonged culture of cancer cells with adipocytes or cytokines increased the proportion of mammosphere-forming cells and of cells expressing stem-like markers in vitro. Furthermore, contact with immature adipocytes increased the abundance of cancer cells with tumor-forming and metastatic potential in vivo. Mechanistic investigations demonstrated that cancer cells cultured with immature adipocytes or cytokines activated Src, thus promoting Sox2, c-Myc, and Nanog upregulation. Moreover, Sox2-dependent induction of miR-302b further stimulated cMYC and SOX2 expression and potentiated the cytokine-induced cancer stem cell-like properties. Finally, we found that Src inhibitors decreased cytokine production after coculture, indicating that Src is not only activated by adipocyte or cytokine exposures, but is also required to sustain cytokine induction. These data support a model in which cancer cell invasion into local fat would establish feed-forward loops to activate Src, maintain proinflammatory cytokine production, and increase tumor-initiating cell abundance and metastatic progression. Collectively, our findings reveal new insights underlying increased breast cancer mortality in obese individuals and provide a novel preclinical rationale to test the efficacy of Src inhibitors for breast cancer treatment.

BACKGROUND: Hypoxia has long been considered as a hallmark of solid tumors and is closely associated with tumor progression. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been identified as a critical modulator in various cancers. However, the connections between hypoxia and circRNAs are largely unknown. METHODS: Here, we investigated the expression profile of circRNAs in breast cancer (BC) MCF-7 cells under hypoxia and normoxia using microarray. We identified a novel hypoxia-responsive circRNA named circWSB1, whose expression pattern, potential diagnostic value and prognostic significance were assessed by qRT-PCR and in situ hybridization. Loss- and gain-of-function investigations in vivo and in vitro were performed to determine the biological functions of circWSB1. Mechanistically, chromatin immunoprecipitation and dual luciferase reporter assays were carried out to analyze the biogenesis of circWSB1. Furthermore, biotin-labeled RNA pull-down, mass spectrometry, RNA immunoprecipitation, fluorescent in situ hybridization, RNA electrophoretic mobility shift, deletion-mapping, co-immunoprecipitation assays and rescue experiments were applied to investigate the interaction between circWSB1 and Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 10 (USP10) as well as the relationship between USP10 and p53. RESULTS: We found that the expression of circWSB1 was significantly upregulated in BC tissues and correlated with poor clinical outcomes, which might serve as an independent prognostic factor for BC patients. Ectopic expression of circWSB1 promoted the proliferation of BC cell in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, circWSB1 was transcriptionally upregulated by HIF1α in response to hypoxia and could competitively bind to deubiquitinase USP10 to prevent the access of p53 to USP10 in BC cells, leading to degradation of p53 and tumor progression of BC. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our findings disclose a novel mechanism that hypoxia-inducible circWSB1 could interact with USP10 to attenuate USP10 mediated p53 stabilization and promote the progression of BC, providing an alternative prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for BC.

// Zhen Wei Zou 1 , Charlie Ma 2 , Lorraine Medoro 2 , Lili Chen 2 , Bin Wang 2 , Roohi Gupta 2 , Ting Liu 3 , Xian Zi Yang 4 , Tian Tian Chen 4 , Ruo Zhen Wang 5 , Wen Jie Zhang 6 , Pin Dong Li 1 1 Cancer Center, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, China 2 Department of Radiation Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Center, American Oncologic Hospital, Pennsylvania, PA 19111, USA 3 Institute of Infection and Immunology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430022, China 4 Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in Southern China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, 510060, China 5 Department of Radiation Oncology, Affiliated Tumor Hospital, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi, Xinjiang, 830011, China 6 Department of Pathology, Shihezi University School of Medicine, Shihezi, Xinjiang, 832002, China Correspondence to: Pin Dong Li, email: PinDong.Li@fccc.edu , lpd8204@163.com Keywords: nasopharyngeal, carcinoma, LncRNA/ANRIL, mTOR pathway, glucose metabolism Received: May 10, 2016      Accepted: August 11, 2016      Published: August 20, 2016 ABSTRACT Long noncoding RNAs play a vital role in diverse biological processes such as embryonic development, cell growth, and tumorigenesis. In this study, we report that LncRNA ANRIL, which encodes a 3834-nt RNA that contains 19 exons at the antisense orientation of the INK4B-ARF-INK4A gene cluster, generally up-regulated in nasopharyngeal carcinoma [ 1 ]. In a cohort of 88 NPC patients, ANRIL was highly expressed in advanced-stage cancer. Multivariate analyses revealed that ANRIL expression could serve as an independent predictor of overall survival ( P = 0.027) and disease-free survival ( P = 0.033). Further investigation showed that knockdown of ANRIL significantly repressed NPC cell proliferation and transformation. We also found that ANRIL could induce the percentage of side population cells (SP cells) in NPC. To meet the urgent needs of energy provision, ANRIL can also reprogram glucose metabolism via increasing glucose uptake for glycolysis, which was regulated by the mTOR signal pathway to affect the expression of essential genes in glycolysis. We concluded that ANRIL could promote NPC progression via increasing cell proliferation, reprograming cell glucose metabolism and inducing side-population stem-like cancer cells. Our results also suggested that ANRIL may serve as a novel diagnostic or prognostic biomarker and a candidate target for new therapies in NPC.