Whole Transcriptome Sequencing Analysis of Cancer Stem/Progenitor Cells Obtained from Mouse Lung Adenocarcinomas.

Interrogation and characterization of lung cancer stem cells (CSCs) that are implicated in lung oncogenesis is crucial for our understanding of inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity and the aggressive nature of the disease, including tumor resistance and relapse in response to conventional therapy. Here, we describe an in vitro surrogate model, namely the "sphere-forming assay," for the derivation, enrichment, and propagation of lung stem/progenitor cells with CSC properties, including self-renewal, tumor initiation capacity and propagation, and differentiation into cells of the tumor bulk, from a murine Kras-mutant lung adenocarcinoma cell line. Self-renewing cancer stem/progenitor cells, in the form of 3D in vitro spheres, can be phenotypically interrogated using downstream techniques such as gene expression analysis (e.g., whole transcriptome sequencing and quantitative real time PCR), which is the focus of this chapter.

Stem Cells: In Sickness and in Health.

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells with the ability to proliferate and convert to different types of differentiated cells that make up the various tissues and organs in the body. They exist both in embryos as pluripotent stem cells that can differentiate into the three germ layers and as multipotent or unipotent stem cells in adult tissues to aid in repair and homeostasis. Perturbations in these cells' normal functions can give rise to a wide variety of diseases. In this review, we discuss the origin of different stem cell types, their properties and characteristics, their role in tissue homeostasis, current research, and their potential applications in various life-threatening diseases. We focus on neural stem cells, their role in neurogenesis and how they can be exploited to treat diseases of the brain including neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Next, we explore current research in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC) techniques and their clinical applications in regenerative and personalized medicine. Lastly, we tackle a special type of stem cells called Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) and how they can be responsible for therapy resistance and tumor recurrence and explore ways to target them.

Modeling Adipogenesis: Current and Future Perspective.

Adipose tissue is contemplated as a dynamic organ that plays key roles in the human body. Adipogenesis is the process by which adipocytes develop from adipose-derived stem cells to form the adipose tissue. Adipose-derived stem cells' differentiation serves well beyond the simple goal of producing new adipocytes. Indeed, with the current immense biotechnological advances, the most critical role of adipose-derived stem cells remains their tremendous potential in the field of regenerative medicine. This review focuses on examining the physiological importance of adipogenesis, the current approaches that are employed to model this tightly controlled phenomenon, and the crucial role of adipogenesis in elucidating the pathophysiology and potential treatment modalities of human diseases. The future of adipogenesis is centered around its crucial role in regenerative and personalized medicine.

Cancerona: Challenges of Cancer Management in Times of COVID-19 Pandemic.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has infected millions of people worldwide and emerged to be the biggest global health threat claiming hundreds of thousands of lives at exponential rates. The severity of the disease increases with old age and presence of underlying health conditions, such as cancer. Managing cancer patients under these circumstances is rather challenging, given their compromised immunity and the overwhelmed health care services by COVID-19 community transmission. Thus, it is prudent to establish common guidelines for the monitoring and treatment of cancer patients. In this review, we comprehensively investigate the various aspects of cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, discuss challenges faced while treating cancer patients, and propose potential approaches to manage COVID-19 among this vulnerable population. We also discuss molecular aberrations and genetic changes associated with cancer and their role in affecting the virus' infectivity and severity. Lastly, we shed light on therapeutic approaches that can encompass both diseases without compromising one over the other.

Genome-wide gene expression analysis of a murine model of prostate cancer progression: Deciphering the roles of IL-6 and p38 MAPK as potential therapeutic targets.

BACKGROUND: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among adult males globally. The poor prognosis of PCa is largely due to late diagnosis of the disease when it has already progressed to an advanced stage marked by androgen-independence, thus necessitating new strategies for early detection and treatment. We construe that these direly needed advances are limited by our poor understanding of early events in the progression of PCa and that would thus represent ideal targets for early intervention. To begin to fill this void, we interrogated molecular "oncophenotypes" that embody the transition of PCa from an androgen-dependent (AD) to-independent (AI) state. METHODS: To accomplish this aim, we used our previously established AD and AI murine PCa cell lines, PLum-AD and PLum-AI, respectively, which recapitulate primary and progressive PCa morphologically and molecularly. We statistically surveyed global gene expressions in these cell lines by microarray analysis. Differential profiles were functionally interrogated by pathways, gene set enrichment and topological gene network analyses. RESULTS: Gene expression analysis of PLum-AD and PLum-AI transcriptomes (n = 3 each), revealed 723 differentially expressed genes (392 upregulated and 331 downregulated) in PLum-AI compared to PLum-AD cells. Gene set analysis demonstrated enrichment of biological functions and pathways in PLum-AI cells that are central to tumor aggressiveness including cell migration and invasion facilitated by epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Further analysis demonstrated that the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) was predicted to be significantly activated in the PLum-AI cells, whereas gene sets previously associated with favorable response to the p38 inhibitor SB203580 were attenuated (i.e., inversely enriched) in the PLum-AI cells, suggesting that these aggressive cells may be therapeutically vulnerable to p38 inhibition. Gene set and gene-network analysis also alluded to activation of other signaling networks particularly those associated with enhanced EMT, inflammation and immune function/response including, but not limited to Tnf, IL-6, Mmp 2, Ctgf, and Ptges. Accordingly, we chose SB203580 and IL-6 to validate their effect on PLum-AD and PLum-AI. Some of the common genes identified in the gene-network analysis were validated at the molecular and functional level. Additionally, the vulnerability to SB203580 and the effect of IL-6 were also validated on the stem/progenitor cell population using the sphere formation assay. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, our study highlights pathways associated with an augmented malignant phenotype in AI cells and presents new high-potential targets to constrain the aggressive malignancy seen in the castration-resistant PCa.

Genome-Wide and Phenotypic Evaluation of Stem Cell Progenitors Derived From Gprc5a-Deficient Murine Lung Adenocarcinoma With Somatic Kras Mutations.

Lung adenocarcinomas (LUADs) with somatic mutations in the KRAS oncogene comprise the most common molecular subtype of lung cancer in smokers and present with overall dismal prognosis and resistance to most therapies. Our group recently demonstrated that tobacco carcinogen-exposed mice with knockout of the airway lineage G-protein coupled receptor, Gprc5a, develop LUADs with somatic mutations in Kras. Earlier work has suggested that cancer stem cells (CSCs) play crucial roles in clonal evolution of tumors and in therapy resistance. To date, our understanding of CSCs in LUADs with somatic Kras mutations remains lagging. Here we derived CSCs (as spheres in 3D cultures) with self-renewal properties from a murine Kras-mutant LUAD cell line we previously established from a tobacco carcinogen-exposed Gprc5a -/- mouse. Using syngeneic Gprc5a -/- models, we found that these CSCs, compared to their parental isoforms, exhibited increased tumorigenic potential in vivo, particularly in female animals. Using whole-transcriptome sequencing coupled with pathways analysis and confirmatory PCR, we identified gene features (n = 2,600) differentially expressed in the CSCs compared to parental cells and that were enriched with functional modules associated with an augmented malignant phenotype including stemness, tumor-promoting inflammation and anti-oxidant responses. Further, based on in silico predicted activation of GSK3ß in CSCs, we found that tideglusib, an irreversible inhibitor of the kinase, exhibited marked anti-growth effects in the cultured CSCs. Our study underscores molecular cues in the pathogenesis of Kras-mutant LUAD and presents new models to study the evolution, and thus high-potential targets, of this aggressive malignancy.