Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) is a rare disease that occurs more frequently in younger women compared with high-grade disease. The current treatment is suboptimal, and better understanding of molecular pathogenesis of this disease is needed. In this study, we compared the whole genome sequences of LGSOCs from short-term and long-term survivors (defined as <40 and >60 months, respectively). Our goal was to identify novel genomic aberrations in LGSOC, especially in short-term survivors.
Distinguishing multiple primary lung cancers in the synchronous multifocal intrapulmonary lesions has important significance on clinical staging and therapeutic decision. To investigate genomic aberration profiles, we applied whole genome and whole exome sequencing, and microarray-based comparative genomic hybridization on 15 intrapulmonary tumors derived from six patients with synchronous multifocal lung cancers having similar histological diagnosis. Any pair of intrapulmonary tumors in a single patient, which shared the identical genetic background and environment, showed an extinctive heterogeneity between each other. Phylogenetic relationship analysis indicated an independently branched evolution among all the tumors, suggesting they were multiple primary lung cancers. EGFR or KRAS mutations were found in 7 or 3 out of the 15 tumors, from 3 or 2 patients, respectively. Somatic mutational heterogeneity of these two genes in a single patient was also observed. Our analysis indicates genomic aberration profiling is valuable for identification of multiple primary lung cancer, especially when high histopathological concordance was observed between lesions. We also suggest a thoroughly molecular diagnosis against therapeutic target genes should be taken for each accessible nodule before making a plan for adjuvant therapy.
We performed targeted, massively-parallel sequencing of 101 genes in 205 children with Crohn's disease, including 179 parent-child trios and 200 controls, both of European ancestry. We identified three genes with nominally significant p-values: NOD2, RTKN2, and MGAT3. Only NOD2 was significant after correcting for multiple comparisons. We identified eight novel rare variants in NOD2 that are likely disease-associated. Incorporation of rare variation and compound heterozygosity nominally increased the proportion of variance explained from 0.074 to 0.089. We estimated the population attributable risk and total heritability of variation in NOD2 to be 32.9% and 3.4%, respectively, with 3.7% and 0.25% accounted for by rare putatively functional variants. Sequencing probands (as opposed to genotyping) to identify rare variants and incorporating phase by sequencing parents can recover a portion of the missing heritability of Crohn's disease. (Reprinted from G3 2018;8(9): 2881-2888; PMID: 30166421. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.)
Programmatic submissions (XML based) For further information please check our Submission FAQs, submission quickguide as well as submission terms! Introduction Besides the Submitter Portal tool, EGA supports programmatic sequence and clinical data metadata submissions. If you are not sure what this means, you may want to explore our brief metadata introduction. Programmatic submissions are recommended for array-based submission. Moreove, it may be of help if your submission is recurrent or it is difficult to manage manually due to its sheer size. Otherwise, we highly recommend using the Submitter Portal to perform submissions. In this page we will guide you through the required steps to programmatically submit data to the EGA. Programmatic submissions require your metadata to be structured for an easy and straightforward validation and archival. It basically consists in formatting your metadata as Extensible markup language (XML) files and submitting them to the EGA using the WEBIN Before submitting metadata to the EGA, it is important to ensure that the information in your XML files is compliant with our standards. You can see further details on how these standards are maintained at EGA at our EGA Schemas documentation page. Using WEBIN, you can validate your XML files against EGA's schemas to ensure that your metadata is compliant before submission. WEBIN services WEBIN production service WEBIN test service We advise you to submit your metadata to the test service when submitting to the production service for the first time. The test service is identical to the production service except that all submissions will be discarded in the following 24 hours. This allows you to learn about the submission process without having to worry about data being submitted. Authentication Authentication is required each time a submission is made. The submission service uses HTTPS protocol for metadata encryption and identification to provide a secure submission environment. Data file upload Both Runs and Analyses reference files (e.g. FASTQ need to be uploaded to the EGA before these metadata objects are submitted. In other words, if you submit a Run that references a file that we cannot find associated with your account, the metadata submission will fail. See further details on how to upload your files in our File Upload documentation. Metadata model of the EGA Our metadata model is formed by multiple metadata objects. Check further details in our documentation at our EGA Schema documentation page. Working with EGA XMLs files Now that the basic concepts of the EGA metadata have been described, you can start preparing your programmatic submission through XML. Here you will find the guidance on how to prepare the XML files. Programmatic Submission Tutorial Video Take a look at the Programmatic Submission Tutorial Video, which explains the workflow of a programmatic submission and goes over an example metadata submission. Programmatic Submission Tutorial Video. When building your XML files, we recommend using text editors (e.g.Sublime Text or VisualStudio) that allow you to visualise the structure of the XML with ease. Furthermore, these editors constantly check the consistency of the XML structure. Alternatively, and if the submission consists of a big number of objects (specially analyses), you may find the tool star2xml handy. This tool allows for a direct conversion between metadata in a tabular format (e.g. a spreadsheet) into XMLs. Identifying objects: Aliases and center names Every EGA object must be uniquely identified within the submission account using their alias attribute. The aliases can be used in submissions to make references between EGA objects. Let us dig into EGA's use of aliases and center names: alias: every object should have a name that is unique within your submission account. Once submitted successfully, every alias will be assigned a unique and permanent accession (EGA ID). refname: when an object references another by its alias, the alias of the referenced object goes into the "refname" attribute of the referencing object. For example, if a sample has the alias "sample1", and an experiment uses this sample, then the experiment's "EXPERIMENT/SAMPLE/refname" attribute should be "sample1". center_name: The "center_name" attribute is required within the submission XML and, if not provided when the object is submitted, it will be automatically filled using your default EGA account center_name. This element is the "controlled vocabulary acronym or abbreviation that is provided to the account holder when the account is first generated". If the submitter is brokering a submission for another institute, the submitter should use their special broker account name in broker_name while the data centre acronym remains in center_name. Log-in details should have been provided when you requested a submission account. Please contact our Helpdesk team if you have any questions. run_center: Many submitting centers contract out the actual sample sequencing to another center. In these cases, the sequencing center should be acknowledged in the run_center attribute. Again, this is controlled vocabulary and the acronym should be sought from EGA helpdesk before submitting. Please contact our Helpdesk team if you have any questions. Prepare your XMLs The goal of this section is to provide sufficient information to be able to create the metadata XML documents required for programmatic submissions. Please note, the EGA utilises the XML schemas maintained at the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA). It is important due to the fact that by using a similar system, some pieces of documentation from the ENA's programmatic submission can also help you with your programmatic submission to the EGA. For example, you can submit programmatically without using a Submission XML by following the steps at Submission actions without submission XML. A submission does not have to contain all different types of XMLs. For example, it is possible to submit only a few samples; or a study that is later to be referenced. You can submit each object one by one, or submit all in a batch: you choose what method of submission works best for you. We do recommend, nevertheless, that you submit the objects to be referenced (e.g. samples or studies) first, and the objects that reference these (e.g. experiments or datasets) afterwards. You can see a graphical view of these objects and their relationships at our EGA Schemas page. Independently of the submission scenario, you will always require a Dataset XML. The entity of a dataset is what is used to control access to the given data, in the form of runs or analyses. In other words, when a requester is granted access, it is through the dataset and the objects (e.g. runs or analyses) that the dataset contains, granting access to them in one go. Given the nature of the EGA, a dataset XML will always be required for the data access. First, we will differentiate between submissions of "raw" and "processed" data: Runs and Analyses, respectively. Run data submissions Raw data derives from instruments "as is". For example, a plain sequence file (e.g. FASTQ or unaligned BAM files) would be considered raw data. A typical raw (unaligned) sequence read submission consists of 8 XMLs: Submission Study Sample Experiment Run DAC Policy Dataset When technical reads (e.g. barcodes, adaptors or linkers) are included in the submitted raw sequences, a spot descriptor must be submitted to describe the position of the technical reads so that they can be removed. The following data files can be submitted without providing spot descriptor information in the experiment/run XML: BAM files (single reads) SFF files (single reads without barcodes) FastQ files (single reads without any technical reads) Complete Genomics files Analysis data submissions Processed data is, in some way, refined raw data. This includes raw data that has been processed by some form of analysis method (e.g. alignment, noise reduction, etc.). For example, an aligned sequence (e.g. BAM file), that was created using raw FASTQ files, would be a processed file. This category includes most types of data: sequence alignment files (e.g. BAM or CRAM), clinical data (e.g. phenopackets), sequence variation files (e.g. VCF), sequence annotation, etc. A typical EGA analysis data submission consists of 7 EGA XML: Submission Study Sample Analysis DAC Policy Dataset We accept three different types of analysis data submissions: BAM files (for multiple read alignments) VCF files (for sequence variations) Phenotype files (in any format) In anycase, keep in mind that samples must be created in order to be referenced in the analyses. In other words, the provenance of the information within the BAM, VCF and phenotype files Example XMLs Below you can find a non-extensive list of example XMLs with descriptive fields (i.e. explaining what to provide in each field). Furthermore, you can also find real examples (i.e. the true value of the provided fields) in our GitHub repository. Submission XML The submission XML is used to validate, submit or update any number of other objects. The submission XML refers to other XMLs. New submissions use the ADD action to submit new objects. Object updates are done using the MODIFY action and objects can be validated using the VERIFY action. Descriptive submission XML example True values submission XML example Study XML The study XML is used to describe the study containing a title, a study type and abstract as it would appear in a publication. Descriptive study XML example True values study XML example Please use the following notation within the property "STUDY_LINKS" when including PubMed citations in the Study XML: <STUDY_LINKS> <STUDY_LINK> <XREF_LINK> <DB>PUBMED</DB> <ID>18987735</ID> </XREF_LINK> </STUDY_LINK> </STUDY_LINKS> Sample XML The sample XML is used to describe the samples used to obtain the data, whether they were sequenced, measured in any other way, or have an associated phenotype. The mandatory fields include information about the taxonomy of the sample, sex, subject ID and phenotype. For example, the mandatory attribute fields for each sample would look like these, within the array of "SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTES": <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTES> <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <TAG>subject_id</TAG> <VALUE>free text!</VALUE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <TAG>sex</TAG> <VALUE>female/male/unknown</VALUE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <TAG>phenotype</TAG> <VALUE>Free text, EFO terms (e.g. EFO:0000574) are recommended</VALUE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTES> Sample is one of the most important objects to be described biologically, it is highly recommended that “TAG-VALUE” pairs are generated as SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTES to describe the sample in as much detail as possible. For example, were we to give the population ancestry of the sample, we could add a new attribute to the array, in which, for example, we would indicate that the sample derives from an individual of "Mende in Sierra Leone" (MSL), with an african ancestry: <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> <TAG>Population</TAG> <VALUE>MSL</VALUE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> Given that VALUE and TAG are free text, the combinations are limitless in order to give you full flexibility on the information you want to provide. We recommend you use the Experimental Factor Ontology (EFO) to describe the phenotypes of your samples. You can provide more than one phenotype by adding more items to the array of SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTES. Phenotypes considered essential for understanding the data submission should be provided. Each phenotype described should be listed as a separate sample attribute <SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE> </SAMPLE_ATTRIBUTE>. There is no limit to the number of phenotypes that can be submitted. If a suitable EFO accession cannot be found for your phenotype attribute, please consider using another controlled ontology database (e.g. HPO, MONDO, etc.) before using free text. Descriptive sample XML example True values sample XML example Experiment XML The experiment XML is used to describe the experimental setup, including instrument platform and model details, library preparation details, and any additional information required to correctly interpret the submitted data. Where any of these values differ between runs, a new experiment object must exist, since runs are grouped by experiments. Each experiment references a study and a sample by alias, or if previously-submitted, by accession. Pooled data must be demultiplexed by barcode for submission. Descriptive experiment ( Illumina paired read ) XML example True values experiment ( Illumina paired read ) XML example Run XML The run XML is used to associate data files with experiments and typically comprises a single data file (e.g. a FASTQ file). Please note that pooled samples should be de-multiplexed prior submission and submitted as different runs. Descriptive run XML example True values run XML example Analysis XML Given that an analysis can be used to submit any type of processed data to the EGA, we will list below an example of each of the three most common types of analysis XMLs submitted to the EGA: sequence alignments (e.g. BAM files); sequence variation (e.g. VCF files); and clinical metadata or phenotypes (e.g. phenopackets). Regardless of the type of processed data submitted in the analysis, the analysis must be associated with a Study and can reference multiple types of other objects, from samples to experiments, if they are available at the EGA. Just like with Runs, whenever a file is submitted to the EGA through an analysis object, the file MD5 checksums must be present, in order for the EGA to validate file integrity upon transfer. This also includes index files when applicable (e.g. .bai.md5 files). Ideally, any analysis that uses a reference sequence for some kind of alignment (e.g. BAM, CRAM or VCF files), would contain metadata about the alignment, such as INSDC reference assemblies and sequences, by either using accessions (e.g. CM000663.1) or common labels (e.g. GRCh37). Read alignment (BAM) Analysis XML The Analysis can be used to submit BAM alignments to EGA. Only one BAM file can be submitted in each analysis and the samples used within the BAM read groups must be associated with Samples. Descriptive bam alignments XML example True values bam alignments XML example Sequence variation (VCF) Analysis XML The Analysis can be used to submit VCF files to EGA. Only one VCF file can be submitted in each analysis and the samples used within the VCF files must be associated with Samples. Download analysis XML (VCF) Phenotype files The Analysis XML can be used to submit phenotype files to the EGA. Only one phenotype file can be submitted in each analysis and the samples used within the phenotype files must be associated with EGA Samples. Download analysis XML (Phenotype) DAC XML The DAC XML describes the Data Access Committee (DAC) affiliated to the data submission. The DAC may consist of a group or a single individual and is responsible for the data access decisions based on the application procedure described in the POLICY.XML. As with any other object, if it was already submitted to the EGA, there is no need to submit it again: you can reference an existing object within the EGA. Hence, A DAC XML does not need to be provided if your submission is affiliated to an existing EGA DAC.. Further information on DACs can be found here, and you can always contact our Helpdesk team if you have further inquiries. Descriptive dac XML example True values dac XML example Policy XML The Policy XML describes the Data Access Agreement (DAA) to be affiliated to the named Data Access Committee. Descriptive policy XML example True values study XML example Dataset XML The dataset XML describes the data files, defined by the Run.XML and Analysis.XML, that make up the dataset and links the collection of data files to a specified Policy. The dataset xml is commonly the last metadata object to be submitted, since it references multiple other entities. Please consider the number of datasets that your submission consists of. For example, a case-control study is likely to consist of at least two datasets. In addition, we suggest that multiple datasets should be described for studies using the same samples but different sequence technologies. Descriptive dataset XML example True values dataset XML example Validating and submitting your EGA Validating EGA's XMLs through Webin After you have ensured that the XMLs are properly formatted and contain all the required information. You can proceed to validate and submit your data. Use the curl command to validate your XML file: Once you have prepared your XML file and asserted you have access to Webin, you can validate your XML file programmatically against EGA's schemas using the curl command. There are multiple ways in which you can validate your XMLs. This variety has to do with the fact that: (1) there are 2 instances of Webin (test and production); and (2) that validation is a default step during submission. In other words, any time that you submit your data through Webin, it will be validated automatically before being accepted. This allows for 4 possible routes of validation, all having the same validation result: validating or submitting to either the production service or the test service of Webin. For example, directly validating a "study" object XML in the testing service (wwwdev…) would look like the following: curl -u <USERNAME>:<PASSWORD> -F "ACTION=VALIDATE" "https://wwwdev.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" In this command, you would need to replace <USERNAME> and <PASSWORD> with your EGA account username and password, respectively. You would also replace <INPUT_FILE> with the path to your XML file. A mock example would look like the following: curl -u ega-test-data@ebi.ac.uk:egarocks -F "ACTION=VALIDATE" "https://wwwdev.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" The validation attempt can have different results depending on the given arguments: If your XML file is valid according to EGA's schemas, you will see a message indicating that your XML file is compliant. For example, see below for our mock example, where the "success" was "true" (i.e. no validation errors found). Nevertheless, notice how the "<STUDY accession=" is empty: it is because we were simply validating, so the study did not get an accession or ID. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="receipt.xsl"?> <RECEIPT receiptDate="2023-04-11T15:19:28.850+01:00" submissionFile="submission-EBI-TEST_1681222768850.xml" success="true"> <STUDY accession="" alias="Mock example" status="PRIVATE"/> <SUBMISSION accession="" alias="SUBMISSION-11-04-2023-15:19:28:840"/> <MESSAGES> <INFO>VALIDATE action has been specified.</INFO> <INFO>Submission has been rolled back.</INFO> <INFO>This submission is a TEST submission and will be discarded within 24 hours</INFO> </MESSAGES> <ACTIONS>VALIDATE</ACTIONS> <ACTIONS>PROTECT</ACTIONS> If there are any errors or warnings, the tool will display them, allowing you to correct them before submitting your data to EGA. For example, in the following response, it is said that the object we were trying to submit was already existing, and therefore the "success" was "false". <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="receipt.xsl"?> <RECEIPT receiptDate="2023-04-11T15:12:35.609+01:00" submissionFile="submission-EBI-TEST_1681222355609.xml" success="false"> <STUDY alias="Example!_Human Microbiome Project SP56J" status="PRIVATE" holdUntilDate="2023-03-11Z"/> <SUBMISSION alias="SUBMISSION-11-04-2023-15:12:35:576"/> <MESSAGES> <ERROR>In study, alias: "Example!_Human Microbiome Project SP56J". The object being added already exists in the submission account with accession: "ERP127584".</ERROR> <INFO>VALIDATE action has been specified.</INFO> <INFO>Submission has been rolled back.</INFO> <INFO>This submission is a TEST submission and will be discarded within 24 hours</INFO> </MESSAGES> <ACTIONS>VALIDATE</ACTIONS> <ACTIONS>PROTECT</ACTIONS> If the curl command retrieves no response at all, please double check if your username and password are correctly provided. Also notice the "ACTION=..." argument passed to the Curl command. This specifies the action to take during the call to Webin, so we do not need a "Submission" XML just for a validation attempt. See more at submission actions without submission XML. Furthermore, validation of multiple files or objects (e.g. sample, experiment, study…) can be done in a single command by adding more arguments (i.e. '-F'). For example: curl -u <USERNAME>:<PASSWORD> -F "ACTION=VALIDATE" "https://wwwdev.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" -F "SAMPLE=@sample.xml" -F "DATASET=@dataset.xml" As mentioned above, beside "validate" action in the test environment, you can also validate your metadata by three other methods: "Validate" in the production server. From our example above, you simply need to take the "dev" away from the URL. curl -u <USERNAME>:<PASSWORD> -F "ACTION=VALIDATE" "https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" "Add" in the development server. From our example above, you would simply need to replace the action: from "validate" to "add". Whatever is submitted to this service will be discarded in 24h, so whether something gets submitted or not would not matter in the long run. curl -u <USERNAME>:<PASSWORD> -F "ACTION=ADD" "https://wwwdev.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" "Add" in the productionserver. A combination of the previous two methods, which would render this attempt into a submission. This path is just to be taken when you are sure your metadata is compliant and what you want to submit. curl -u <USERNAME>:<PASSWORD> -F "ACTION=ADD" "https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/submit/drop-box/submit/" -F "STUDY=@study.xml" What happens after the submission of a dataset XML? Once you have completed the registration of your dataset/s please contact our Helpdesk Team to provide a release date for your study. Please note that all datasets affiliated to unreleased studies are automatically placed on hold until the authorised submitter or DAC contact contact the EGA Helpdesk for the study to be released. We strongly advise you not to delete your data until EGA Helpdesk confirms that your data has been successfully archived.
Nivolumab alone and in combination with ipilimumab demonstrated durable clinical benefit in patients with previously treated microsatellite instability-high/mismatch repair-deficient metastatic colorectal cancer in the phase 2 CheckMate 142 study. Exploratory biomarker analyses of tumor and microbiome samples from CheckMate 142 were performed to evaluate associations between various biomarkers and the efficacy of nivolumab monotherapy and nivolumab plus ipilimumab combination in these patients. Higher expression of inflammation-related gene expression signatures was associated with improved response per investigator assessment and survival benefit with nivolumab monotherapy. In contrast, higher tumor mutational burden, tumor indel burden and degrees of microsatellite instability were associated with improved response per investigator assessment and survival benefit with nivolumab plus ipilimumab. While interpretation is limited by the exploratory nature of these analyses, they suggest that tumor antigenicity rather than baseline tumor inflammation might be important for the combinatorial efficacy. Validation of these findings in larger, randomized studies is necessary.
The gut microbiome is emerging as a key regulator of several metabolic, immune and neuroendocrine pathways. Gut microbiome deregulation has been implicated in major conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty acid liver disease or cancer, but its precise role in aging remains to be elucidated. Here, we characterize the gut microbiome profile of accelerated aging and show that its external modulation is sufficient to extend healthspan and lifespan. We found that two different mouse models of progeria present with intestinal dysbiosis, which is characterized, among other alterations, by an increment in proteobacteria, cyanobacteria and a loss in verrucomicrobia, whereas long-lived humans (i.e., centenarians) exhibit a remarkable increase in verrucomicrobia and a reduction in proteobacteria. Fecal microbiota transplantation proved to be effective to enhance healthspan and lifespan in both progeroid mouse models and, more importantly, the solely transplantation with the verrucomicrobia Akkermansia muciniphila was sufficient to exert beneficial effects. Our results demonstrate that intestinal dysbiosis is a phenotype associated with accelerated aging and its correction provides health benefits. Moreover, metabolomic analysis of ileal content points to the restoration of secondary bile acids as a possible mechanism for the beneficial outcome of reestablishing a healthy microbiome. Our results suggest the existence of a link between gut aging and the microbiota, and can help to gain insight into the rationale for microbiome-based interventions against age-related diseases. Mouse sequence data have been deposited in ENA (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena) under accession number PRJEB34214
The Consortium for the Longitudinal Evaluation of African-Americans with Early Rheumatoid Arthritis (CLEAR) Registry and Repository, supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), was established in 2000 to provide a resource for the scientific community to explore genetic and non-genetic factors affecting rheumatoid arthritis (RA) occurrence and outcomes in African Americans. The long term objective is a database and a repository of 1,100 RA and 550 matched healthy African-American subjects. This CLEAR Registry and Repository has two arms: a longitudinal arm for subjects with early RA (enrollment from 2000 to 2005) and a cross-sectional arm for subjects with any disease duration (enrollment from 2006 to 2012). CLEAR has two components: a database and a repository. The database contains extensive demographic, socioeconomic, clinical and radiographic (radiographs of hands and feet) information and bone mineral density data from DEXA scans. The repository contains genomic DNA, plasma and serum on most of the participants. Participants in CLEAR II had RNA isolated from peripheral blood cells.
REGARDS is a national, population-based, longitudinal study of incident stroke and associated risk factors including over 30,000 Black and White adults aged 45 years or older from all 48 contiguous U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The study was designed to investigate reasons underlying the higher rate of stroke mortality among Black participants compared to White participants and among residents of the Southeastern U.S. compared to other U.S. regions. By design, Black adults and residents of the deep south were oversampled. Between 2003 and 2007 (baseline visit) participants completed a computer-assisted telephone interview to collect demographic information and medication adherence, and an in-home visit for blood pressure measurements and collection of blood and urine samples. Following the baseline visit, participants have been contacted by phone at six-month intervals to obtain information on incident stroke or secondary outcomes. Additionally, samples and data were collected on about 50% of the original cohort during a second study visit an average of 10 years after the baseline visit. Genotyping was performed as part of an ancillary study on 10,788 (84% Black) participants using Illumina MEGA arrays.
Signet-ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) has specific epidemiology and oncogenesis in gastric cancer, however with no systematical investigation for prognostic genomic features. We systematically investigated the clinical characteristics of 1,868 Chinese gastric cancer patients, and found that signet-ring cell content was significantly related to multiple clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes. Next, we performed whole genome sequencing for 32 SRCC patients with > 80% signet-ring cells in tumor, and identified frequent5 CLDN18-ARHGAP26/6 fusion (25%). With additional 797 patients for validation, we notice that prevalence of CLDN18-ARHGAP26/6 fusion is positively associated with signet-ring cell content (P = 4.1 x 10 -9 ), younger age at diagnosis (P = 4.2 x 10 -10 ), female/male ratio (P = 1.7 x 10 -9 ), and advanced TNM stage (P = 1.7 x 10 -5 ). Importantly, patients with CLDN18-ARHGAP26/6 fusion had a worse survival outcomes (P = 0.03), and got no benefit0 from platinum/fluoropyrimidines based chemotherapy (P = 0.92) compared to fusion-free patients (P = 0.001), which is consistent with the fact of oxaliplatin/fluoropyrimidine resistance acquired in CLDN18-ARHGAP26 introduced gastric cancer cell lines. Overall, this study provides new insights into the clinical and genomic features of SRCC, and highlights the importance of frequent CLDN18-ARHGAP26/6 fusions in chemotherapy response for SRCC.
The poor prognosis of patients with glioblastoma is partly due to resistance to standard treatment, which combines chemoradiation using temozolomide (TMZ). The concept of cancer stem cells provided new insight into tumor resistance and management, and isolated Glioblastoma stem-like cells (GSCs) which contribute to this therapy resistance. Bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP4) is a differentiation factor that stimulates astroglial differentiation of such GSCs, thereby reducing their self-renewal. Exposing GSCs to BMP4 could therefore sensitize them to chemotherapy with TMZ, but previous studies with various treatment paradigms have produced contradictory results in this matter. Therefore, we re-defined the optimal treatment paradigm for the combination of TMZ and BMP4 and subsequently re-assessed the inter-tumoral variability in response to co-treatment with TMZ+BMP4 in vitro. First, the simultaneous treatment was found more effective than sequential therapy. Second, after application of our optimized treatment protocol, 70% of a total of 20 patient-derived glioblastoma cultures showed synergy when the treatments were combined. The synergistic effect was a result of increased cellular apoptosis and not of decreased proliferation. Comparative RNA-sequencing suggested that combination treatment results in decreased MAPK signaling. We conclude that addition of BMP4 to standard therapy with TMZ could enlarge the group of patients with good therapeutic response.
