Morning for Irofulven, What Could be fiNER?

Pan-cancer analysis of necroptosis-related gene signature for the identification of prognosis and immune significance

BACKGROUND

Necroptosis is a novel programmed cell death mode independent on caspase. A number of studies have revealed that the induction of necroptosis could act as an alternative therapeutic strategy for drug-resistant tumors as well as affect tumor immune microenvironment.

METHODS

Gene expression profiles and clinical data were downloaded from XENA-UCSC (including The Cancer Genome Atlas and Genotype-Tissue Expression), Gene Expression Omnibus, International Cancer Genome Consortium and Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas. We used non-negative matrix factorization method to conduct tumor classification. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression was applied to establish risk models, whose prognostic effectiveness was examined in both training and testing sets with Kaplan-Meier analysis, time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curves as well as uni- and multi-variate survival analysis. Principal Component Analysis, t-distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection were conducted to check the risk group distribution. Gene Set Enrichment Analyses, immune infiltration analysis based on CIBERSORT, EPIC, MCPcounter, ssGSEA and ESTIMATE, gene mutation and drug sensitivity between the risk groups were also taken into consideration.

RESULTS

There were eight types of cancer with at least ten differentially expressed necroptosis-related genes which could influence patients' prognosis, namely, adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma (CESC), acute myeloid leukemia (LAML), brain lower grade glioma (LGG), pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD), liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC), skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) and thymoma (THYM). Patients could be divided into different clusters with distinct overall survival in all cancers above except for LIHC. The risk models could efficiently predict prognosis of ACC, LAML, LGG, LIHC, SKCM and THYM patients. LGG patients from high-risk group had a higher infiltration level of M2 macrophages and cancer-associated fibroblasts. There were more CD8+ T cells, Th1 cells and M1 macrophages in low-risk SKCM patients' tumor microenvironment. Gene mutation status and drug sensitivity are also different between low- and high-risk groups in the six cancers.

CONCLUSIONS

Necroptosis-related genes can predict clinical outcomes of ACC, LAML, LGG, LIHC, SKCM and THYM patients and help to distinguish immune infiltration status for LGG and SKCM.

PARP Inhibition in Prostate Cancer With Homologous Recombination Repair Alterations

PURPOSE

With the broad use of next-generation sequencing assays, it has become clear that mutations in DNA repair genes are more commonly found than previously reported. In advanced prostate cancer patients with BRCA1/2 or ATM mutations, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibition (PARPi) causes an increased overall survival advantage compared with patients without these mutations. This review explores the advantages and limitations of PARPi treatment and its use beyond BRCA1/2-altered tumors. Furthermore, it discusses the benefits of current biomarkers and what role functional biomarkers and organoids may play in addressing the involvement of homologous recombination repair mutations in tumor development and progression.

METHODS

A systematic review was conducted in MEDLINE, National Library of Medicine, and ClinicalTrials.gov to identify studies published between January 1, 2016, and August 31, 2021. The search strategy incorporated terms for PARPi, BRCA, DNA damage, homologous recombination, organoids, patient-derived organoids, biomarker AND prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer.

RESULTS

A total of 261 records remained after duplicate removal, 69 of which were included in the qualitative synthesis.

CONCLUSION

To improve the outcome of targeted therapy and increase sensitivity of tumor detection, patients should be repeatedly screened for DNA repair gene alterations and biomarkers. Future clinical studies should explore the use of PARPi beyond BRCA1/2 mutations and focus on finding new synthetically lethal interactions.

This review explores PARPi and its use for more than just BRCA1/2 altered tumors

Cyclohumulanoid Sesquiterpenes from the Culture Broth of the Basidiomycetous Fungus Daedaleopsis tricolor

A series of cyclohumulanoids, i.e., tricocerapicanols A-C (1a-1c), tricoprotoilludenes A (2a) and B (3), tricosterpurol (4), and tricoilludins A-C (5-7) were isolated along with known violascensol (2b) and omphadiol (8) from the culture broth of Daedaleopsis tricolor, an inedible but not toxic mushroom. The structures were fully elucidated on the basis of NMR spectroscopic analysis, and the suggested relative structures were confirmed via density functional theory (DFT)-based chemical shift calculations involving a DP4 probability analysis. In the present study, the 1H chemical shifts were more informative than the 13C chemical shifts to distinguish the diastereomers at C-11. The absolute configurations of 1-5 were determined by comparing the experimental and calculated electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra. For 6 and 7, the same chirality was assigned according to their biosynthetic similarities with the other compounds. The successful assignment of some Cotton effects was achieved by utilizing DFT calculations using simple model compounds. The plausible biosynthesis of 1-7 was also discussed on the basis of the structural commonality and general cyclohumulanoid biosynthesis. Compounds 2a and 5 were found to simultaneously induce hyphal swelling and branching at 5.0 μg/mL against a test fungus Cochliobolus miyabeanus.