Targeting hedgehog signaling in cancer: research and clinical developments

Genome-wide microarray expression and genomic alterations by array-CGH analysis in neuroblastoma stem-like cells

Neuroblastoma has a very diverse clinical behaviour: from spontaneous regression to a very aggressive malignant progression and resistance to chemotherapy. This heterogeneous clinical behaviour might be due to the existence of Cancer Stem Cells (CSC), a subpopulation within the tumor with stem-like cell properties: a significant proliferation capacity, a unique self-renewal capacity, and therefore, a higher ability to form new tumors. We enriched the CSC-like cell population content of two commercial neuroblastoma cell lines by the use of conditioned cell culture media for neurospheres, and compared genomic gains and losses and genome expression by array-CGH and microarray analysis, respectively (in CSC-like versus standard tumor cells culture). Despite the array-CGH did not show significant differences between standard and CSC-like in both analyzed cell lines, the microarray expression analysis highlighted some of the most relevant biological processes and molecular functions that might be responsible for the CSC-like phenotype. Some signalling pathways detected seem to be involved in self-renewal of normal tissues (Wnt, Notch, Hh and TGF-β) and contribute to CSC phenotype. We focused on the aberrant activation of TGF-β and Hh signalling pathways, confirming the inhibition of repressors of TGF-β pathway, as SMAD6 and SMAD7 by RT-qPCR. The analysis of the Sonic Hedgehog pathway showed overexpression of PTCH1, GLI1 and SMO. We found overexpression of CD133 and CD15 in SIMA neurospheres, confirming that this cell line was particularly enriched in stem-like cells. This work shows a cross-talk among different pathways in neuroblastoma and its importance in CSC-like cells.

New insight into hedgehog signaling in hematological malignancies

The hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway is well established as being evolutionarily conserved across vertebrates, and is involved in organogenesis, hematopoiesis, embryogenesis and homeostasis of adult tissues. At a microscopic level, the Hh signaling pathway controls the proliferation, apoptosis, cell-cycle and differentiation programs of stem and progenitor cells. Increasing evidence suggests that aberrant activation of the Hh signaling pathway is related to neoplasm, including solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. Currently the Hh signaling pathway has become one of the most studied potential therapeutic targets in hematological malignancies. In this review, we focus on findings related to Hh signaling in the initiation, maintenance, progression and chemoresistance of hematological malignancies, looking forward to better targeted treatment strategies.

Seeking genetic signature of radiosensitivity--a novel method for data analysis in case of small sample sizes

Background

The identification of polymorphisms and/or genes responsible for an organism's radiosensitivity increases the knowledge about the cell cycle and the mechanism of the phenomena themselves, possibly providing the researchers with a better understanding of the process of carcinogenesis.

Aim

The aim of the study was to develop a data analysis strategy capable of discovering the genetic background of radiosensitivity in the case of small sample size studies.

Results

Among many indirect measures of radiosensitivity known, the level of radiation-induced chromosomal aberrations was used in the study. Mathematical modelling allowed the transformation of the yield-time curve of radiation-induced chromosomal aberrations into the exponential curve with limited number of parameters, while Gaussian mixture models applied to the distributions of these parameters provided the criteria for mouse strain classification. A detailed comparative analysis of genotypes between the obtained subpopulations of mice followed by functional validation provided a set of candidate polymorphisms that might be related to radiosensitivity. Among 1857 candidate relevant SNPs, that cluster in 28 genes, eight SNPs were detected nonsynonymous (nsSNP) on protein function. Two of them, rs48840878 (gene Msh3) and rs5144199 (gene Cc2d2a), were predicted as having increased probability of a deleterious effect. Additionally, rs48840878 is capable of disordering phosphorylation with 14 PKs. In silico analysis of candidate relevant SNP similarity score distribution among 60 CGD mouse strains allowed for the identification of SEA/GnJ and ZALENDE/EiJ mouse strains (95.26% and 86.53% genetic consistency respectively) as the most similar to radiosensitive subpopulation

Conclusions

A complete step-by-step strategy for seeking the genetic signature of radiosensitivity in the case of small sample size studies conducted on mouse models was proposed. It is shown that the strategy, which is a combination of mathematical modelling, statistical analysis and data mining methodology, allows for the discovery of candidate polymorphisms which might be responsible for radiosensitivity phenomena.