The Explorer's Guide to Biology: A Free Multimedia Educational Resource to Promote Deep Learning and Understanding of the Scientific Process.

Here, we describe a new open-access digital resource for teaching and learning life science, The Explorer's Guide to Biology (available at explorebiology.org). Biology can often feel like a daunting subject where learners must comprehend a sea of facts before they can participate in meaningful discussions regarding core biology concepts or biological research. In truth, developing an intellectual framework by learning how scientists solve complex biological questions may be more valuable than memorizing a sea of facts. Yet, there is a lack of free educational resources that address this issue or attempt to provide learners with context for the knowledge they are gaining. Our goal is to offer learners a more exciting and accurate window into the life sciences. Our content is designed to help learners educate themselves by engaging with stories of discovery that highlight the process of science. This strategy not only provides an intellectual framework for the content presented but also provides the learner with an accurate view of the process of science. We leverage multiple modes of content delivery (such as videos, images, text, interactive activities, and just-in-time assessments) to create an engaging learning experience and an easily adaptable teaching resource. The resource is targeted for undergraduate or AP high school-level life science educators and learners, however, it is designed so anyone who is interested in learning about life science can engage with the content with little to no prior knowledge.

Engaging students through online video homework assignments: A case study in a large-enrollment ecology and evolution course.

Online educational videos have the potential to enhance undergraduate biology learning, for example by showcasing contemporary scientific research and providing content coverage. Here, we describe the integration of nine videos into a large-enrollment (n = 356) introductory evolution and ecology course via weekly homework assignments. We predicted that videos that feature research stories from contemporary scientists could reinforce topics introduced in lecture and provide students with novel insights into the nature of scientific research. Using qualitative analysis of open-ended written feedback from the students on each video assigned throughout the term (n = 133-229 responses per video) and on end-of-quarter evaluations (n = 243), we identified common categories of student perspectives. All videos received more positive than negative comments and all videos received comments indicating that students found them intellectually and emotionally stimulating, accessible, and relevant to course content. Additionally, all videos also received comments indicating some students found them intellectually unstimulating, though these comments were generally far less numerous than positive comments. Students responded positively to videos that incorporated at least one of the following: documentary-style filming, very clear links to course content (especially hands-on activities completed by the students), relevance to recent world events, clarity on difficult topics, and/or charismatic narrators or species. We discuss opportunities and challenges for the use of online educational videos in teaching ecology and evolution, and we provide guidelines instructors can use to integrate them into their courses.

Semantic Network Analysis Reveals Opposing Online Representations of the Search Term "GMO".

Making sound food and agriculture decisions is important for global society and the environment. Experts tend to view crop genetic engineering, a technology that can improve yields and minimize impacts on the environment, more favorably than the public. Because there is a causal relationship between public opinion and public policy, it is important to understand how opinions about genetically engineered (GE) crops are influenced. The public increasingly seeks science information on the Internet. Here, semantic network analysis is performed to characterize the presentation of the term "GMO (genetically modified organism)," a proxy for food developed from GE crops, on the web. Texts from three sources are analyzed: U.S. federal websites, top pages from a Google search, and online news titles. We found that the framing and sentiment (positive, neutral, or negative attitudes) of "GMO" varies across these sources. It is described how differences in the portrayal of GE food by each source might affect public opinion. A current understanding of the types of information individuals may encounter online can provide insight into public opinion toward GE food. In turn, this knowledge can guide teaching and communication efforts by the scientific community to promote informed decision-making about agricultural biotechnologies.

MYC-driven inhibition of the glutamate-cysteine ligase promotes glutathione depletion in liver cancer.

How MYC reprograms metabolism in primary tumors remains poorly understood. Using integrated gene expression and metabolite profiling, we identify six pathways that are coordinately deregulated in primary MYC-driven liver tumors: glutathione metabolism; glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism; aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis; cysteine and methionine metabolism; ABC transporters; and mineral absorption. We then focus our attention on glutathione (GSH) and glutathione disulfide (GSSG), as they are markedly decreased in MYC-driven tumors. We find that fewer glutamine-derived carbons are incorporated into GSH in tumor tissue relative to non-tumor tissue. Expression of GCLC, the rate-limiting enzyme of GSH synthesis, is attenuated by the MYC-induced microRNA miR-18a. Inhibition of miR-18a in vivo leads to increased GCLC protein expression and GSH abundance in tumor tissue. Finally, MYC-driven liver tumors exhibit increased sensitivity to acute oxidative stress. In summary, MYC-dependent attenuation of GCLC by miR-18a contributes to GSH depletion in vivo, and low GSH corresponds with increased sensitivity to oxidative stress in tumors. Our results identify new metabolic pathways deregulated in primary MYC tumors and implicate a role for MYC in regulating a major antioxidant pathway downstream of glutamine.

PIM1 kinase inhibition as a targeted therapy against triple-negative breast tumors with elevated MYC expression.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), in which cells lack expression of the estrogen receptor (ER), the progesterone receptor (PR) and the ERBB2 (also known as HER2) receptor, is the breast cancer subtype with the poorest outcome. No targeted therapy is available against this subtype of cancer owing to a lack of validated molecular targets. We previously reported that signaling involving MYC-an essential, pleiotropic transcription factor that regulates the expression of hundreds of genes-is disproportionally higher in triple-negative (TN) tumors than in receptor-positive (RP) tumors. Direct inhibition of the oncogenic transcriptional activity of MYC has been challenging to achieve. Here, by conducting a shRNA screen targeting the kinome, we identified PIM1, a non-essential serine-threonine kinase, in a synthetic lethal interaction with MYC. PIM1 expression was higher in TN tumors than in RP tumors and was associated with poor prognosis in patients with hormone- and HER2-negative tumors. Small-molecule PIM kinase inhibitors halted the growth of human TN tumors with elevated MYC expression in patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) and MYC-driven transgenic mouse models of breast cancer by inhibiting the oncogenic transcriptional activity of MYC and restoring the function of the endogenous cell cycle inhibitor, p27. Our findings warrant clinical evaluation of PIM kinase inhibitors in patients with TN tumors that have elevated MYC expression.

Inhibition of fatty acid oxidation as a therapy for MYC-overexpressing triple-negative breast cancer.

Expression of the oncogenic transcription factor MYC is disproportionately elevated in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), as compared to estrogen receptor-, progesterone receptor- or human epidermal growth factor 2 receptor-positive (RP) breast cancer. We and others have shown that MYC alters metabolism during tumorigenesis. However, the role of MYC in TNBC metabolism remains mostly unexplored. We hypothesized that MYC-dependent metabolic dysregulation is essential for the growth of MYC-overexpressing TNBC cells and may identify new therapeutic targets for this clinically challenging subset of breast cancer. Using a targeted metabolomics approach, we identified fatty acid oxidation (FAO) intermediates as being dramatically upregulated in a MYC-driven model of TNBC. We also identified a lipid metabolism gene signature in patients with TNBC that were identified from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and from multiple other clinical data sets, implicating FAO as a dysregulated pathway that is critical for TNBC cell metabolism. We found that pharmacologic inhibition of FAO catastrophically decreased energy metabolism in MYC-overexpressing TNBC cells and blocked tumor growth in a MYC-driven transgenic TNBC model and in a MYC-overexpressing TNBC patient-derived xenograft. These findings demonstrate that MYC-overexpressing TNBC shows an increased bioenergetic reliance on FAO and identify the inhibition of FAO as a potential therapeutic strategy for this subset of breast cancer.

Taking on challenging targets: making MYC druggable.

The transcription factor proto-oncogene c-MYC (hereafter MYC) was first identified more than 3 decades ago and has since been found deregulated in a wide variety of the most aggressive human malignancies. As a pleiotropic transcription factor, MYC directly or indirectly controls expression of hundreds of coding and noncoding genes, which affect cell cycle entry, proliferation, differentiation, metabolism, and death/survival decisions of normal and cancer cells. Tumors with elevated MYC expression often exhibit highly proliferative, aggressive phenotypes, and elevated MYC expression has been correlated with diminished disease-free survival for a variety of human cancers. The use of MYC overexpression or MYC-dependent transcriptional gene signatures as clinical biomarkers is currently being investigated. Furthermore, preclinical animal and cell-based model systems have been extensively utilized in an effort to uncover the mechanisms of MYC-dependent tumorigenesis and tumor maintenance. Despite our ever-growing understanding of MYC biology, currently no targeted therapeutic strategy is clinically available to treat tumors that have acquired elevated MYC expression. This article summarizes the progresses being made to discover and implement new therapies to kill MYC over-expressing tumors-a target that was once deemed undruggable.

MicroRNA-494 within an oncogenic microRNA megacluster regulates G1/S transition in liver tumorigenesis through suppression of mutated in colorectal cancer.

UNLABELLED: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with poor survival for patients and few effective treatment options, raising the need for novel therapeutic strategies. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) play important roles in tumor development and show deregulated patterns of expression in HCC. Because of the liver's unique affinity for small nucleic acids, miRNA-based therapy has been proposed in the treatment of liver disease. Thus, there is an urgent need to identify and characterize aberrantly expressed miRNAs in HCC. In our study, we profiled miRNA expression changes in de novo liver tumors driven by MYC and/or RAS, two canonical oncogenes activated in a majority of human HCCs. We identified an up-regulated miRNA megacluster comprised of 53 miRNAs on mouse chromosome 12qF1 (human homolog 14q32). This miRNA megacluster is up-regulated in all three transgenic liver models and in a subset of human HCCs. An unbiased functional analysis of all miRNAs within this cluster was performed. We found that miR-494 is overexpressed in human HCC and aids in transformation by regulating the G1 /S cell cycle transition through targeting of the Mutated in Colorectal Cancer tumor suppressor. miR-494 inhibition in human HCC cell lines decreases cellular transformation, and anti-miR-494 treatment of primary MYC-driven liver tumor formation significantly diminishes tumor size. CONCLUSION: Our findings identify a new therapeutic target (miR-494) for the treatment of HCC.

13C-pyruvate imaging reveals alterations in glycolysis that precede c-Myc-induced tumor formation and regression.

Tumor cells have an altered metabolic phenotype characterized by increased glycolysis and diminished oxidative phosphorylation. Despite the suspected importance of glycolysis in tumorigenesis, the temporal relationship between oncogene signaling, in vivo tumor formation, and glycolytic pathway activity is poorly understood. Moreover, how glycolytic pathways are altered as tumors regress remains unknown. Here, we use a switchable model of Myc-driven liver cancer, along with hyperpolarized (13)C-pyruvate magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to visualize glycolysis in de novo tumor formation and regression. LDHA abundance and activity in tumors is tightly correlated to in vivo pyruvate conversion to lactate and is rapidly inhibited as tumors begin to regress, as are numerous glycolysis pathway genes. Conversion of pyruvate to alanine predominates in precancerous tissues prior to observable morphologic or histological changes. These results demonstrate that metabolic changes precede tumor formation and regression and are directly linked to the activity of a single oncogene.

Cullin 1 functions as a centrosomal suppressor of centriole multiplication by regulating polo-like kinase 4 protein levels.

Abnormal centrosome and centriole numbers are frequently detected in tumor cells where they can contribute to mitotic aberrations that cause chromosome missegregation and aneuploidy. The molecular mechanisms of centriole overduplication in malignant cells, however, are poorly characterized. Here, we show that the core SKP1-cullin-F-box component cullin 1 (CUL1) localizes to maternal centrioles and that CUL1 is critical for suppressing centriole overduplication through multiplication, a recently discovered mechanism whereby multiple daughter centrioles form concurrently at single maternal centrioles. We found that this activity of CUL1 involves the degradation of Polo-like kinase 4 (PLK4) at maternal centrioles. PLK4 is required for centriole duplication and strongly stimulates centriole multiplication when aberrantly expressed. We found that CUL1 is critical for the degradation of active PLK4 following deregulation of cyclin E/cyclin-dependent kinase 2 activity, as is frequently observed in human cancer cells, as well as for baseline PLK4 protein stability. Collectively, our results suggest that CUL1 may function as a tumor suppressor by regulating PLK4 protein levels and thereby restraining excessive daughter centriole formation at maternal centrioles.