Publications by authors named "Matti Nykter"

131 Publications

The transcription factor network of E. coli steers global responses to shifts in RNAP concentration.

Authors:
Bilena L B Almeida Mohamed N M Bahrudeen Vatsala Chauhan Suchintak Dash Vinodh Kandavalli Antti Häkkinen Jason Lloyd-Price Palma S D Cristina Ines S C Baptista Abhishekh Gupta Juha Kesseli Eric Dufour Olli-Pekka Smolander Matti Nykter Petri Auvinen Howard T Jacobs Samuel M D Oliveira Andre S Ribeiro

Nucleic Acids Res 2022 Jun 24. Epub 2022 Jun 24.

Laboratory of Biosystem Dynamics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

The robustness and sensitivity of gene networks to environmental changes is critical for cell survival. How gene networks produce specific, chronologically ordered responses to genome-wide perturbations, while robustly maintaining homeostasis, remains an open question. We analysed if short- and mid-term genome-wide responses to shifts in RNA polymerase (RNAP) concentration are influenced by the known topology and logic of the transcription factor network (TFN) of Escherichia coli. We found that, at the gene cohort level, the magnitude of the single-gene, mid-term transcriptional responses to changes in RNAP concentration can be explained by the absolute difference between the gene's numbers of activating and repressing input transcription factors (TFs). Interestingly, this difference is strongly positively correlated with the number of input TFs of the gene. Meanwhile, short-term responses showed only weak influence from the TFN. Our results suggest that the global topological traits of the TFN of E. coli shape which gene cohorts respond to genome-wide stresses.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkac540DOI Listing
June 2022

Estimation of tumor cell total mRNA expression in 15 cancer types predicts disease progression.

Authors:
Shaolong Cao Jennifer R Wang Shuangxi Ji Peng Yang Yaoyi Dai Shuai Guo Matthew D Montierth John Paul Shen Xiao Zhao Jingxiao Chen Jaewon James Lee Paola A Guerrero Nicholas Spetsieris Nikolai Engedal Sinja Taavitsainen Kaixian Yu Julie Livingstone Vinayak Bhandari Shawna M Hubert Najat C Daw P Andrew Futreal Eleni Efstathiou Bora Lim Andrea Viale Jianjun Zhang Matti Nykter Bogdan A Czerniak Powel H Brown Charles Swanton Pavlos Msaouel

Nat Biotechnol 2022 Jun 13. Epub 2022 Jun 13.

Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.

Single-cell RNA sequencing studies have suggested that total mRNA content correlates with tumor phenotypes. Technical and analytical challenges, however, have so far impeded at-scale pan-cancer examination of total mRNA content. Here we present a method to quantify tumor-specific total mRNA expression (TmS) from bulk sequencing data, taking into account tumor transcript proportion, purity and ploidy, which are estimated through transcriptomic/genomic deconvolution. We estimate and validate TmS in 6,590 patient tumors across 15 cancer types, identifying significant inter-tumor variability. Across cancers, high TmS is associated with increased risk of disease progression and death. TmS is influenced by cancer-specific patterns of gene alteration and intra-tumor genetic heterogeneity as well as by pan-cancer trends in metabolic dysregulation. Taken together, our results indicate that measuring cell-type-specific total mRNA expression in tumor cells predicts tumor phenotypes and clinical outcomes.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41587-022-01342-xDOI Listing
June 2022

Novel ZNF414 activity characterized by integrative analysis of ChIP-exo, ATAC-seq and RNA-seq data.

Authors:
Alejandra Rodriguez-Martinez Elisa M Vuorinen Anastasia Shcherban Joonas Uusi-Mäkelä Nina K M Rajala Matti Nykter Anne Kallioniemi

Biochim Biophys Acta Gene Regul Mech 2022 04 19;1865(3):194811. Epub 2022 Mar 19.

Tays Cancer Center, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland; BioMediTech, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland; Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

Transcription factor binding to DNA is a central mechanism regulating gene expression. Thus, thorough characterization of this process is essential for understanding cellular biology in both health and disease. We combined data from three sequencing-based methods to unravel the DNA binding function of the novel ZNF414 protein in cells representing two tumor types. ChIP-exo served to map protein binding sites, ATAC-seq allowed identification of open chromatin, and RNA-seq examined the transcriptome. We show that ZNF414 is a DNA-binding protein that both induces and represses gene expression. This transcriptional response has an impact on cellular processes related to proliferation and other malignancy-associated functions, such as cell migration and DNA repair. Approximately 20% of the differentially expressed genes harbored ZNF414 binding sites in their promoters in accessible chromatin, likely representing direct targets of ZNF414. De novo motif discovery revealed several putative ZNF414 binding sequences, one of which was validated using EMSA. In conclusion, this study illustrates a highly efficient integrative approach for the characterization of the DNA binding and transcriptional activity of transcription factors.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbagrm.2022.194811DOI Listing
April 2022

Spatial analysis of histology in 3D: quantification and visualization of organ and tumor level tissue environment.

Authors:
Pekka Ruusuvuori Masi Valkonen Kimmo Kartasalo Mira Valkonen Tapio Visakorpi Matti Nykter Leena Latonen

Heliyon 2022 Jan 14;8(1):e08762. Epub 2022 Jan 14.

Institute of Biomedicine, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.

Histological changes in tissue are of primary importance in pathological research and diagnosis. Automated histological analysis requires ability to computationally separate pathological alterations from normal tissue. Conventional histopathological assessments are performed from individual tissue sections, leading to the loss of three-dimensional context of the tissue. Yet, the tissue context and spatial determinants are critical in several pathologies, such as in understanding growth patterns of cancer in its local environment. Here, we develop computational methods for visualization and quantitative assessment of histopathological alterations in three dimensions. First, we reconstruct the 3D representation of the whole organ from serial sectioned tissue. Then, we proceed to analyze the histological characteristics and regions of interest in 3D. As our example cases, we use whole slide images representing hematoxylin-eosin stained whole mouse prostates in a mouse prostate tumor model. We show that quantitative assessment of tumor sizes, shapes, and separation between spatial locations within the organ enable characterizing and grouping tumors. Further, we show that 3D visualization of tissue with computationally quantified features provides an intuitive way to observe tissue pathology. Our results underline the heterogeneity in composition and cellular organization within individual tumors. As an example, we show how prostate tumors have nuclear density gradients indicating areas of tumor growth directions and reflecting varying pressure from the surrounding tissue. The methods presented here are applicable to any tissue and different types of pathologies. This work provides a proof-of-principle for gaining a comprehensive view from histology by studying it quantitatively in 3D.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e08762DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8800033PMC
January 2022

Subclone Eradication Analysis Identifies Targets for Enhanced Cancer Therapy and Reveals L1 Retrotransposition as a Dynamic Source of Cancer Heterogeneity.

Authors:
Kirsi Ketola Heidi Kaljunen Sinja Taavitsainen Roosa Kaarijärvi Emmi Järvelä Bernardo Rodríguez-Martín Kerstin Haase Dan J Woodcock Jose Tubio David C Wedge Matti Nykter G Steven Bova

Cancer Res 2021 10 8;81(19):4901-4909. Epub 2021 Sep 8.

Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University and Tays Cancer Center, Tampere, Finland.

Treatment-eradicated cancer subclones have been reported in leukemia and have recently been detected in solid tumors. Here we introduce Differential Subclone Eradication and Resistance (DSER) analysis, a method developed to identify molecular targets for improved therapy by direct comparison of genomic features of eradicated and resistant subclones in pre- and posttreatment samples from a patient with BRCA2-deficient metastatic prostate cancer. FANCI and EYA4 were identified as candidate DNA repair-related targets for converting subclones from resistant to eradicable, and RNAi-mediated depletion of FANCI confirmed it as a potential target. The EYA4 alteration was associated with adjacent L1 transposon insertion during cancer evolution upon treatment, raising questions surrounding the role of therapy in L1 activation. Both carboplatin and enzalutamide turned on L1 transposon machinery in LNCaP and VCaP but not in PC3 and 22Rv1 prostate cancer cell lines. L1 activation in LNCaP and VCaP was inhibited by the antiretroviral drug azidothymidine. L1 activation was also detected postcastration in LuCaP 77 and LuCaP 105 xenograft models and postchemotherapy in previously published time-series transcriptomic data from SCC25 head and neck cancer cells. In conclusion, DSER provides an informative intermediate step toward effective precision cancer medicine and should be tested in future studies, especially those including dramatic but temporary metastatic tumor regression. L1 transposon activation may be a modifiable source of cancer genomic heterogeneity, suggesting the potential of leveraging newly discovered triggers and blockers of L1 activity to overcome therapy resistance. SIGNIFICANCE: Differential analysis of eradicated and resistant subclones following cancer treatment identifies that L1 activity associated with resistance is induced by current therapies and blocked by the antiretroviral drug azidothymidine.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-21-0371DOI Listing
October 2021

Combined Longitudinal Clinical and Autopsy Phenomic Assessment in Lethal Metastatic Prostate Cancer: Recommendations for Advancing Precision Medicine.

Authors:
Juho Jasu Teemu Tolonen Emmanuel S Antonarakis Himisha Beltran Susan Halabi Mario A Eisenberger Michael A Carducci Yohann Loriot Kim Van der Eecken Martijn Lolkema Charles J Ryan Sinja Taavitsainen Silke Gillessen Gunilla Högnäs Timo Talvitie Robert J Taylor Antti Koskenalho Piet Ost Teemu J Murtola Irina Rinta-Kiikka Teuvo Tammela Anssi Auvinen Paula Kujala Thomas J Smith Pirkko-Liisa Kellokumpu-Lehtinen William B Isaacs Matti Nykter Juha Kesseli G Steven Bova

Eur Urol Open Sci 2021 Aug 2;30:47-62. Epub 2021 Jul 2.

Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Prostate Cancer Research Center, Tampere University and Tays Cancer Center, Tampere, FI-33014, Finland.

Background: Systematic identification of data essential for outcome prediction in metastatic prostate cancer (mPC) would accelerate development of precision oncology.

Objective: To identify novel phenotypes and features associated with mPC outcome, and to identify biomarker and data requirements to be tested in future precision oncology trials.

Design Setting And Participants: We analyzed deep longitudinal clinical, neuroendocrine expression, and autopsy data of 33 men who died from mPC between 1995 and 2004 (PELICAN33), and related findings to mPC biomarkers reported in the literature.

Intervention: Thirty-three men prospectively consented to participate in an integrated clinical-molecular rapid autopsy study of mPC.

Outcome Measurements And Statistical Analysis: Data exploration with correction for multiple testing and survival analysis from the time of diagnosis to time to death and time to first occurrence of severe pain as outcomes were carried out. The effect of seven complications on the modeled probability of dying within 2 yr after presenting with the complication was evaluated using logistic regression.

Results And Limitations: Feature exploration revealed novel phenotypes related to mPC outcome. Four complications (pleural effusion, severe anemia, severe or controlled pain, and bone fracture) predict the likelihood of death within 2 yr. Men with Gleason grade group 5 cancers developed severe pain sooner than those with lower-grade tumors. Surprisingly, neuroendocrine (NE) differentiation was frequently observed in the setting of high serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels (≥30 ng/ml). In 4/33 patients, no controlled (requiring analgesics) or severe pain was detected, and strikingly, 14/15 metastatic sites studied in these men did not express NE markers, suggesting an inverse relationship between NE differentiation and pain in mPC. Intracranial subdural metastasis is common (36%) and is usually clinically undetected. Categorization of "skeletal-related events" complications used in recent studies likely obscures the understanding of spinal cord compression and fracture. Early death from prostate cancer was identified in a subgroup of men with a low longitudinal PSA bandwidth. Cachexia is common (body mass index <0.89 in 24/31 patients) but limited to the last year of life. Biomarker review identified 30 categories of mPC biomarkers in need of winnowing in future trials. All findings require validation in larger cohorts, preferably alongside data from this study.

Conclusions: The study identified novel outcome subgroups for future validation and provides "vision for mPC precision oncology 2020-2050" draft recommendations for future data collection and biomarker studies.

Patient Summary: To better understand variation in metastatic prostate cancer behavior, we assembled and analyzed longitudinal clinical and autopsy records in 33 men. We identified novel outcomes, phenotypes, and aspects of disease burden to be tested and refined in future trials.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euros.2021.05.011DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8317817PMC
August 2021

Chromatin and Epigenetic Dysregulation of Prostate Cancer Development, Progression, and Therapeutic Response.

Authors:
Konsta Kukkonen Sinja Taavitsainen Laura Huhtala Joonas Uusi-Makela Kirsi J Granberg Matti Nykter Alfonso Urbanucci

Cancers (Basel) 2021 Jul 2;13(13). Epub 2021 Jul 2.

Department of Tumor Biology, Institute for Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital, 0424 Oslo, Norway.

The dysregulation of chromatin and epigenetics has been defined as the overarching cancer hallmark. By disrupting transcriptional regulation in normal cells and mediating tumor progression by promoting cancer cell plasticity, this process has the ability to mediate all defined hallmarks of cancer. In this review, we collect and assess evidence on the contribution of chromatin and epigenetic dysregulation in prostate cancer. We highlight important mechanisms leading to prostate carcinogenesis, the emergence of castration-resistance upon treatment with androgen deprivation therapy, and resistance to antiandrogens. We examine in particular the contribution of chromatin structure and epigenetics to cell lineage commitment, which is dysregulated during tumorigenesis, and cell plasticity, which is altered during tumor progression.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers13133325DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8268970PMC
July 2021

Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 regulates the production of acute-phase reactants from the liver.

Authors:
Dafne Jacome Sanz Anni K Saralahti Meeri Pekkarinen Juha Kesseli Matti Nykter Mika Rämet Markus J T Ojanen Marko Pesu

Liver Int 2021 10 11;41(10):2511-2522. Epub 2021 Jul 11.

Laboratory of Immunoregulation, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

Background & Aims: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) controls blood cholesterol levels by fostering the LDL receptor (LDLR) degradation in hepatocytes. Additionally, PCSK9 has been suggested to participate in immunoregulation by modulating cytokine production. We studied the immunological role of PCSK9 in Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteraemia in vivo and in a human hepatocyte cell line.

Methods: CRISPR/Cas9 mutagenesis was utilized to create pcsk9 knock-out (KO) zebrafish, which were infected with S pneumoniae to assess the role of PCSK9 for the survival of the fish and in the transcriptomic response of the liver. The direct effects of PCSK9 on the expression of acute-phase reaction (APR) genes were studied in HepG2 cells.

Results: The pcsk9 KO zebrafish lines (pcsk9 and pcsk9 ) did not show developmental defects or gross phenotypical differences. In the S pneumoniae infected zebrafish, the mortality of pcsk9 KOs was similar to the controls. A liver-specific gene expression analysis revealed that a pneumococcal challenge upregulated pcsk9, and that the pcsk9 deletion reduced the expression of APR genes, including hepcidin antimicrobial peptide (hamp) and complement component 7b (c7b). Accordingly, silencing PCSK9 in vitro in HepG2 cells using small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) decreased HAMP expression.

Conclusions: We demonstrate that PCSK9 is not critical for zebrafish survival in a systemic pneumococcal infection. However, PCSK9 deficiency was associated with the lower expression of APR genes in zebrafish and altered the expression of innate immunity genes in a human hepatocyte cell line. Overall, our data suggest an evolutionarily conserved function for PCSK9 in APR in the liver.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/liv.14993DOI Listing
October 2021

Evolution of Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer in ctDNA during Sequential Androgen Receptor Pathway Inhibition.

Authors:
Matti Annala Sinja Taavitsainen Daniel J Khalaf Gillian Vandekerkhove Kevin Beja Joonatan Sipola Evan W Warner Cameron Herberts Amanda Wong Simon Fu Daygen L Finch Conrad D Oja Joanna Vergidis Muhammad Zulfiqar Bernhard J Eigl Christian K Kollmansberger Matti Nykter Martin E Gleave Kim N Chi Alexander W Wyatt

Clin Cancer Res 2021 08 3;27(16):4610-4623. Epub 2021 Jun 3.

Vancouver Prostate Centre, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia, British Columbia, Canada.

Purpose: Cross-resistance renders multiple lines of androgen receptor (AR) signaling inhibitors increasingly futile in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). We sought to determine acquired genomic contributors to cross-resistance.

Experimental Design: We collected 458 serial plasma cell-free DNA samples at baseline and progression timepoints from 202 patients with mCRPC receiving sequential AR signaling inhibitors (abiraterone and enzalutamide) in a randomized phase II clinical trial (NCT02125357). We utilized deep targeted and whole-exome sequencing to compare baseline and posttreatment somatic genomic profiles in circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA).

Results: Patient ctDNA abundance was correlated across plasma collections and independently prognostic for sequential therapy response and overall survival. Most driver alterations in established prostate cancer genes were consistently detected in ctDNA over time. However, shifts in somatic populations after treatment were identified in 53% of patients, particularly after strong treatment responses. Treatment-associated changes converged upon the gene, with an average 50% increase in copy number, changes in mutation frequencies, and a 2.5-fold increase in the proportion of patients carrying AR ligand binding domain truncating rearrangements.

Conclusions: Our data show that the dominant genotype continues to evolve during sequential lines of AR inhibition and drives acquired resistance in patients with mCRPC.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-21-1625DOI Listing
August 2021

CD109-GP130 interaction drives glioblastoma stem cell plasticity and chemoresistance through STAT3 activity.

Authors:
Pauliina Filppu Jayendrakishore Tanjore Ramanathan Kirsi J Granberg Erika Gucciardo Hannu Haapasalo Kaisa Lehti Matti Nykter Vadim Le Joncour Pirjo Laakkonen

JCI Insight 2021 05 10;6(9). Epub 2021 May 10.

Translational Cancer Medicine Research Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

Glioma stem cells (GSCs) drive propagation and therapeutic resistance of glioblastomas, the most aggressive diffuse brain tumors. However, the molecular mechanisms that maintain the stemness and promote therapy resistance remain poorly understood. Here we report CD109/STAT3 axis as crucial for the maintenance of stemness and tumorigenicity of GSCs and as a mediator of chemoresistance. Mechanistically, CD109 physically interacts with glycoprotein 130 to promote activation of the IL-6/STAT3 pathway in GSCs. Genetic depletion of CD109 abolished the stemness and self-renewal of GSCs and impaired tumorigenicity. Loss of stemness was accompanied with a phenotypic shift of GSCs to more differentiated astrocytic-like cells. Importantly, genetic or pharmacologic targeting of CD109/STAT3 axis sensitized the GSCs to chemotherapy, suggesting that targeting CD109/STAT3 axis has potential to overcome therapy resistance in glioblastoma.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.141486DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8262342PMC
May 2021

Genetic and Epigenetic Characteristics of Inflammatory Bowel Disease-Associated Colorectal Cancer.

Authors:
Kristiina Rajamäki Aurora Taira Riku Katainen Niko Välimäki Anna Kuosmanen Roosa-Maria Plaketti Toni T Seppälä Maarit Ahtiainen Erkki-Ville Wirta Emilia Vartiainen Päivi Sulo Janne Ravantti Suvi Lehtipuro Kirsi J Granberg Matti Nykter Tomas Tanskanen Ari Ristimäki Selja Koskensalo Laura Renkonen-Sinisalo Anna Lepistö Jan Böhm Jussi Taipale Jukka-Pekka Mecklin Mervi Aavikko Kimmo Palin Lauri A Aaltonen

Gastroenterology 2021 08 27;161(2):592-607. Epub 2021 Apr 27.

Department of Medical and Clinical Genetics, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Applied Tumor Genomics Research Program, Research Programs Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address:

Background & Aims: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic, relapsing inflammatory disorder associated with an elevated risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). IBD-associated CRC (IBD-CRC) may represent a distinct pathway of tumorigenesis compared to sporadic CRC (sCRC). Our aim was to comprehensively characterize IBD-associated tumorigenesis integrating multiple high-throughput approaches, and to compare the results with in-house data sets from sCRCs.

Methods: Whole-genome sequencing, single nucleotide polymorphism arrays, RNA sequencing, genome-wide methylation analysis, and immunohistochemistry were performed using fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed tissue samples of tumor and corresponding normal tissues from 31 patients with IBD-CRC.

Results: Transcriptome-based tumor subtyping revealed the complete absence of canonical epithelial tumor subtype associated with WNT signaling in IBD-CRCs, dominated instead by mesenchymal stroma-rich subtype. Negative WNT regulators AXIN2 and RNF43 were strongly down-regulated in IBD-CRCs and chromosomal gains at HNF4A, a negative regulator of WNT-induced epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), were less frequent compared to sCRCs. Enrichment of hypomethylation at HNF4α binding sites was detected solely in sCRC genomes. PIGR and OSMR involved in mucosal immunity were dysregulated via epigenetic modifications in IBD-CRCs. Genome-wide analysis showed significant enrichment of noncoding mutations to 5'untranslated region of TP53 in IBD-CRCs. As reported previously, somatic mutations in APC and KRAS were less frequent in IBD-CRCs compared to sCRCs.

Conclusions: Distinct mechanisms of WNT pathway dysregulation skew IBD-CRCs toward mesenchymal tumor subtype, which may affect prognosis and treatment options. Increased OSMR signaling may favor the establishment of mesenchymal tumors in patients with IBD.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2021.04.042DOI Listing
August 2021

Gene Regulation Network Analysis on Human Prostate Orthografts Highlights a Potential Role for the Regulon in Clinical Prostate Cancer.

Authors:
Mario Cangiano Magda Grudniewska Mark J Salji Matti Nykter Guido Jenster Alfonso Urbanucci Zoraide Granchi Bart Janssen Graham Hamilton Hing Y Leung Inès J Beumer

Cancers (Basel) 2021 Apr 26;13(9). Epub 2021 Apr 26.

GenomeScan B.V. Plesmanlaan 1D, 2333 BZ Leiden, The Netherlands.

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common tumour diagnosed in men. Tumoral heterogeneity in PCa creates a significant challenge to develop robust prognostic markers and novel targets for therapy. An analysis of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) in PCa may provide insight into progressive PCa. Herein, we exploited a graph-based enrichment score to integrate data from GRNs identified in preclinical prostate orthografts and differentially expressed genes in clinical resected PCa. We identified active regulons (transcriptional regulators and their targeted genes) associated with PCa recurrence following radical prostatectomy.

Methods: The expression of known transcription factors and co-factors was analysed in a panel of prostate orthografts ( = 18). We searched for genes (as part of individual GRNs) predicted to be regulated by the highest number of transcriptional factors. Using differentially expressed gene analysis (on a per sample basis) coupled with gene graph enrichment analysis, we identified candidate genes and associated GRNs in PCa within the UTA cohort, with the most enriched regulon being which was further validated in two additional cohorts, namely EMC and ICGC cohorts. Cox regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association of the regulon activity with disease-free survival time in the three clinical cohorts as well as compared to three published prognostic gene signatures (TMCC11, BROMO-10 and HYPOXIA-28).

Results: 1308 regulons were correlated to transcriptomic data from the three clinical prostatectomy cohorts. The regulon was identified as the top enriched regulon in the UTA cohort and again validated in the EMC cohort as the top-ranking regulon. In both UTA and EMC cohorts, the regulon was significantly associated with cancer recurrence. Active regulon also correlated with disease recurrence in the ICGC cohort. Furthermore, Kaplan-Meier analysis confirmed shorter time to recurrence in patients with active regulon for all three clinical cohorts (UTA, EMC and ICGC), which was not the case for three published prognostic gene signatures (TMCC11, BROMO-10 and HYPOXIA-28). In multivariate analysis, the regulon status significantly predicted disease recurrence in the UTA and EMC, but not ICGC datasets, while none of the three published signatures significantly prognosticate for cancer recurrence.

Conclusions: We have characterised gene regulatory networks from preclinical prostate orthografts and applied transcriptomic data from three clinical cohorts to evaluate the prognostic potential of the regulon.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers13092094DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8123677PMC
April 2021

Independent and cumulative coeliac disease-susceptibility loci are associated with distinct disease phenotypes.

Authors:
Juliana X M Cerqueira Päivi Saavalainen Kalle Kurppa Pilvi Laurikka Heini Huhtala Matti Nykter Lotta L E Koskinen Dawit A Yohannes Elina Kilpeläinen Anastasia Shcherban Aarno Palotie Katri Kaukinen Katri Lindfors

J Hum Genet 2021 Jun 15;66(6):613-623. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Coeliac Disease Research Center, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

The phenotype of coeliac disease varies considerably for incompletely understood reasons. We investigated whether established coeliac disease susceptibility variants (SNPs) are individually or cumulatively associated with distinct phenotypes. We also tested whether a polygenic risk score (PRS) based on genome-wide associated (GWA) data could explain the phenotypic variation. The phenotypic association of 39 non-HLA coeliac disease SNPs was tested in 625 thoroughly phenotyped coeliac disease patients and 1817 controls. To assess their cumulative effects a weighted genetic risk score (wGRS39) was built, and stratified by tertiles. In our PRS model in cases, we took the summary statistics from the largest GWA study in coeliac disease and tested their association at eight P value thresholds (P) with phenotypes. Altogether ten SNPs were associated with distinct phenotypes after correction for multiple testing (P ≤ 0.05). The TLR7/TLR8 locus was associated with disease onset before and the SH2B3/ATXN2, ITGA4/UBE2E3 and IL2/IL21 loci after 7 years of age. The latter three loci were associated with a more severe small bowel mucosal damage and SH2B3/ATXN2 with type 1 diabetes. Patients at the highest wGRS39 tertiles had OR > 1.62 for having coeliac disease-related symptoms during childhood, a more severe small bowel mucosal damage, malabsorption and anaemia. PRS was associated only with dermatitis herpetiformis (P = 0.2, P = 0.02). Independent coeliac disease-susceptibility loci are associated with distinct phenotypes, suggesting that genetic factors play a role in determining the disease presentation. Moreover, the increased number of coeliac disease susceptibility SNPs might predispose to a more severe disease course.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s10038-020-00888-5DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8144013PMC
June 2021

Plasma ctDNA is a tumor tissue surrogate and enables clinical-genomic stratification of metastatic bladder cancer.

Authors:
Gillian Vandekerkhove Jean-Michel Lavoie Matti Annala Andrew J Murtha Nora Sundahl Simon Walz Takeshi Sano Sinja Taavitsainen Elie Ritch Ladan Fazli Antonio Hurtado-Coll Gang Wang Matti Nykter Peter C Black Tilman Todenhöfer Piet Ost Ewan A Gibb Kim N Chi Bernhard J Eigl Alexander W Wyatt

Nat Commun 2021 01 8;12(1):184. Epub 2021 Jan 8.

Department of Urologic Sciences, Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Molecular stratification can improve the management of advanced cancers, but requires relevant tumor samples. Metastatic urothelial carcinoma (mUC) is poised to benefit given a recent expansion of treatment options and its high genomic heterogeneity. We profile minimally-invasive plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) samples from 104 mUC patients, and compare to same-patient tumor tissue obtained during invasive surgery. Patient ctDNA abundance is independently prognostic for overall survival in patients initiating first-line systemic therapy. Importantly, ctDNA analysis reproduces the somatic driver genome as described from tissue-based cohorts. Furthermore, mutation concordance between ctDNA and matched tumor tissue is 83.4%, enabling benchmarking of proposed clinical biomarkers. While 90% of mutations are identified across serial ctDNA samples, concordance for serial tumor tissue is significantly lower. Overall, our exploratory analysis demonstrates that genomic profiling of ctDNA in mUC is reliable and practical, and mitigates against disease undersampling inherent to studying archival primary tumor foci. We urge the incorporation of cell-free DNA profiling into molecularly-guided clinical trials for mUC.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20493-6DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7794518PMC
January 2021

Immunogenomic Landscape of Hematological Malignancies.

Authors:
Olli Dufva Petri Pölönen Oscar Brück Mikko A I Keränen Jay Klievink Juha Mehtonen Jani Huuhtanen Ashwini Kumar Disha Malani Sanna Siitonen Matti Kankainen Bishwa Ghimire Jenni Lahtela Pirkko Mattila Markus Vähä-Koskela Krister Wennerberg Kirsi Granberg Suvi-Katri Leivonen Leo Meriranta Caroline Heckman Sirpa Leppä Matti Nykter Olli Lohi Merja Heinäniemi Satu Mustjoki

Cancer Cell 2020 09;38(3):424-428

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2020.08.019DOI Listing
September 2020

Author Correction: The evolutionary history of lethal metastatic prostate cancer.

Authors:
Gunes Gundem Peter Van Loo Barbara Kremeyer Ludmil B Alexandrov Jose M C Tubio Elli Papaemmanuil Daniel S Brewer Heini M L Kallio Gunilla Hägnäs Matti Annala Kati Kivinummi Victoria Goody Calli Latimer Sarah O'Meara Kevin J Dawson William Isaacs Michael R Emmert-Buck Matti Nykter Christopher Foster Zsofia Kote-Jarai Douglas Easton Hayley C Whitaker David E Neal Colin S Cooper Rosalind A Eeles Tapio Visakorpi Peter J Campbell Ultan McDermott David C Wedge

Nature 2020 Aug;584(7820):E18

Cancer Genome Project, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, CB10 1SA, UK.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2581-5DOI Listing
August 2020

Immunogenomic Landscape of Hematological Malignancies.

Authors:
Olli Dufva Petri Pölönen Oscar Brück Mikko A I Keränen Jay Klievink Juha Mehtonen Jani Huuhtanen Ashwini Kumar Disha Malani Sanna Siitonen Matti Kankainen Bishwa Ghimire Jenni Lahtela Pirkko Mattila Markus Vähä-Koskela Krister Wennerberg Kirsi Granberg Suvi-Katri Leivonen Leo Meriranta Caroline Heckman Sirpa Leppä Matti Nykter Olli Lohi Merja Heinäniemi Satu Mustjoki

Cancer Cell 2020 09 9;38(3):380-399.e13. Epub 2020 Jul 9.

Hematology Research Unit Helsinki, Helsinki University Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center (HUH CCC), 00029 Helsinki, Finland; Translational Immunology Research Program and Department of Clinical Chemistry and Hematology, University of Helsinki (UH), 00029 Helsinki, Finland; iCAN Digital Precision Cancer Medicine Flagship, Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address:

Understanding factors that shape the immune landscape across hematological malignancies is essential for immunotherapy development. We integrated over 8,000 transcriptomes and 2,000 samples with multilevel genomics of hematological cancers to investigate how immunological features are linked to cancer subtypes, genetic and epigenetic alterations, and patient survival, and validated key findings experimentally. Infiltration of cytotoxic lymphocytes was associated with TP53 and myelodysplasia-related changes in acute myeloid leukemia, and activated B cell-like phenotype and interferon-γ response in lymphoma. CIITA methylation regulating antigen presentation, cancer type-specific immune checkpoints, such as VISTA in myeloid malignancies, and variation in cancer antigen expression further contributed to immune heterogeneity and predicted survival. Our study provides a resource linking immunology with cancer subtypes and genomics in hematological malignancies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2020.06.002DOI Listing
September 2020

AR and ERG drive the expression of prostate cancer specific long noncoding RNAs.

Authors:
Annika Kohvakka Mina Sattari Anastasia Shcherban Matti Annala Alfonso Urbanucci Juha Kesseli Teuvo L J Tammela Kati Kivinummi Leena Latonen Matti Nykter Tapio Visakorpi

Oncogene 2020 07 17;39(30):5241-5251. Epub 2020 Jun 17.

Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University and Tays Cancer Center, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play pivotal roles in cancer development and progression, and some function in a highly cancer-specific manner. However, whether the cause of their expression is an outcome of a specific regulatory mechanism or nonspecific transcription induced by genome reorganization in cancer remains largely unknown. Here, we investigated a group of lncRNAs that we previously identified to be aberrantly expressed in prostate cancer (PC), called TPCATs. Our high-throughput real-time PCR experiments were integrated with publicly available RNA-seq and ChIP-seq data and revealed that the expression of a subset of TPCATs is driven by PC-specific transcription factors (TFs), especially androgen receptor (AR) and ETS-related gene (ERG). Our in vitro validations confirmed that AR and ERG regulated a subset of TPCATs, most notably for EPCART. Knockout of EPCART was found to reduce migration and proliferation of the PC cells in vitro. The high expression of EPCART and two other TPCATs (TPCAT-3-174133 and TPCAT-18-31849) were also associated with the biochemical recurrence of PC in prostatectomy patients and were independent prognostic markers. Our findings suggest that the expression of numerous PC-associated lncRNAs is driven by PC-specific mechanisms and not by random cellular events that occur during cancer development. Furthermore, we report three prospective prognostic markers for the early detection of advanced PC and show EPCART to be a functionally relevant lncRNA in PC.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41388-020-1365-6DOI Listing
July 2020

Activating AKT1 and PIK3CA Mutations in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer.

Authors:
Cameron Herberts Andrew J Murtha Simon Fu Gang Wang Elena Schönlau Hui Xue Dong Lin Anna Gleave Steven Yip Arkhjamil Angeles Sebastien Hotte Ben Tran Scott North Sinja Taavitsainen Kevin Beja Gillian Vandekerkhove Elie Ritch Evan Warner Fred Saad Nayyer Iqbal Matti Nykter Martin E Gleave Yuzhuo Wang Matti Annala Kim N Chi Alexander W Wyatt

Eur Urol 2020 12 22;78(6):834-844. Epub 2020 May 22.

Vancouver Prostate Centre, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Electronic address:

Background: Activating mutations in AKT1 and PIK3CA are undercharacterised in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), but are linked to activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signalling and sensitivity to pathway inhibitors in other cancers.

Objective: To determine the prevalence, genomic context, and clinical associations of AKT1/PIK3CA activating mutations in mCRPC.

Design, Setting, And Participants: We analysed targeted cell-free DNA (cfDNA) sequencing data from 599 metastatic prostate cancer patients with circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) content above 2%.

Outcome Measurements And Statistical Analysis: In patients with AKT1/PIK3CA mutations, cfDNA was subjected to PTEN intron sequencing and matched diagnostic tumour tissue was analysed when possible.

Results And Limitations: Of the patients, 6.0% (36/599) harboured somatic clonal activating mutation(s) in AKT1 or PIK3CA. Mutant allele-specific imbalance was common. Clonal mutations in mCRPC ctDNA were typically detected in pretreatment primary tissue and were consistent across serial ctDNA collections. AKT1/PIK3CA-mutant mCRPC had fewer androgen receptor (AR) gene copies than AKT1/PIK3CA wild-type mCRPC (median 4.7 vs 10.3, p =  0.003). AKT1 mutations were mutually exclusive with PTEN alterations. Patients with and without AKT1/PIK3CA mutations showed similar clinical outcomes with standard of care treatments. A heavily pretreated mCRPC patient with an AKT1 mutation experienced a 50% decline in prostate-specific antigen with Akt inhibitor (ipatasertib) monotherapy. Ipatasertib also had a marked antitumour effect in a patient-derived xenograft harbouring an AKT1 mutation. Limitations include the inability to assess AKT1/PIK3CA correlatives in ctDNA-negative patients.

Conclusions: AKT1/PIK3CA activating mutations are relatively common and delineate a distinct mCRPC molecular subtype with low-level AR copy gain. Clonal prevalence and evidence of mutant allele selection propose PI3K pathway dependency in selected patients. The use of cfDNA screening enables prospective clinical trials to test PI3K pathway inhibitors in this population.

Patient Summary: Of advanced prostate cancer cases, 6% have activating mutations in the genes AKT1 or PIK3CA. These mutations can be identified using a blood test and may help select patients suitable for clinical trials of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eururo.2020.04.058DOI Listing
December 2020

Prostate-specific membrane antigen expression in the vasculature of primary lung carcinomas associates with faster metastatic dissemination to the brain.

Authors:
Jayendrakishore Tanjore Ramanathan Suvi Lehtipuro Harri Sihto József Tóvári Lilla Reiniger Vanda Téglási Judit Moldvay Matti Nykter Hannu Haapasalo Vadim Le Joncour Pirjo Laakkonen

J Cell Mol Med 2020 06 11;24(12):6916-6927. Epub 2020 May 11.

Translational Cancer Medicine Research Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.

Glioblastomas and brain metastases (BM) of solid tumours are the most common central nervous system neoplasms associated with very unfavourable prognosis. In this study, we report the association of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) with various clinical parameters in a large cohort of primary and secondary brain tumours. A tissue microarray containing 371 cases of ascending grades of gliomas pertaining to astrocytic origin and samples of 52 cases of primary lung carcinomas with matching BM with follow-up time accounting to 10.4 years was evaluated for PSMA expression using immunohistochemistry. In addition, PSMA expression was studied in BM arising from melanomas and breast carcinomas. Neovascular expression of PSMA was evident alongside with high expression in the proliferating microvasculature of glioblastomas when compared to the tumour cell expression. This result correlated with the results obtained from the in silico (cancer genome databases) analyses. In gliomas, only the vascular expression of PSMA associated with poor overall survival but not the tumour cell expression. In the matched primary lung cancers and their BM (n = 52), vascular PSMA expression in primary tumours associated with significantly accelerated metastatic dissemination to the brain with a tendency towards poor overall survival. Taken together, we report that the vascular expression of PSMA in the primary and secondary brain tumours globally associates with the malignant progression and poor outcome of the patients.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcmm.15350DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7299712PMC
June 2020

Inherited DNA Repair Gene Mutations in Men with Lethal Prostate Cancer.

Authors:
Tommi Rantapero Tiina Wahlfors Anna Kähler Christina Hultman Johan Lindberg Teuvo Lj Tammela Matti Nykter Johanna Schleutker Fredrik Wiklund

Genes (Basel) 2020 03 14;11(3). Epub 2020 Mar 14.

Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, 17177 Stockholm, Sweden.

Germline variants in DNA repair genes are associated with aggressive prostate cancer (PrCa). The aim of this study was to characterize germline variants in DNA repair genes associated with lethal PrCa in Finnish and Swedish populations. Whole-exome sequencing was performed for 122 lethal and 60 unselected PrCa cases. Among the lethal cases, a total of 16 potentially damaging protein-truncating variants in DNA repair genes were identified in 15 men (12.3%). Mutations were found in six genes with (4.1%) and (3.3%) being most frequently mutated. Overall, the carrier rate of truncating variants in DNA repair genes among men with lethal PrCa significantly exceeded the carrier rate of 0% in 60 unselected PrCa cases ( = 0.030), and the prevalence of 1.6% ( < 0.001) and 5.4% ( = 0.040) in Swedish and Finnish population controls from the Exome Aggregation Consortium. No significant difference in carrier rate of potentially damaging nonsynonymous single nucleotide variants between lethal and unselected PrCa cases was observed ( = 0.123). We confirm that DNA repair genes are strongly associated with lethal PrCa in Sweden and Finland and highlight the importance of population-specific assessment of variants contributing to PrCa aggressiveness.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes11030314DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7140841PMC
March 2020

Metagenomics of the faecal virome indicate a cumulative effect of enterovirus and gluten amount on the risk of coeliac disease autoimmunity in genetically at risk children: the TEDDY study.

Authors:
Katri Lindfors Jake Lin Hye-Seung Lee Heikki Hyöty Matti Nykter Kalle Kurppa Edwin Liu Sibylle Koletzko Marian Rewers William Hagopian Jorma Toppari Annette-Gabriele Ziegler Beena Akolkar Jeffrey P Krischer Joseph F Petrosino Richard E Lloyd Daniel Agardh

Gut 2020 08 19;69(8):1416-1422. Epub 2019 Nov 19.

The Diabetes and Celiac Disease Unit, Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Objective: Higher gluten intake, frequent gastrointestinal infections and adenovirus, enterovirus, rotavirus and reovirus have been proposed as environmental triggers for coeliac disease. However, it is not known whether an interaction exists between the ingested gluten amount and viral exposures in the development of coeliac disease. This study investigated whether distinct viral exposures alone or together with gluten increase the risk of coeliac disease autoimmunity (CDA) in genetically predisposed children.

Design: The Environmental Determinants of Diabetes in the Young study prospectively followed children carrying the HLA risk haplotypes DQ2 and/or DQ8 and constructed a nested case-control design. From this design, 83 CDA case-control pairs were identified. Median age of CDA was 31 months. Stool samples collected monthly up to the age of 2 years were analysed for virome composition by Illumina next-generation sequencing followed by comprehensive computational virus profiling.

Results: The cumulative number of stool enteroviral exposures between 1 and 2 years of age was associated with an increased risk for CDA. In addition, there was a significant interaction between cumulative stool enteroviral exposures and gluten consumption. The risk conferred by stool enteroviruses was increased in cases reporting higher gluten intake.

Conclusions: Frequent exposure to enterovirus between 1 and 2 years of age was associated with increased risk of CDA. The increased risk conferred by the interaction between enteroviruses and higher gluten intake indicate a cumulative effect of these factors in the development of CDA.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2019-319809DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7234892PMC
August 2020

Moderate-to-strong expression of FGFR3 and TP53 alterations in a subpopulation of choroid plexus tumors.

Authors:
Kirsi J Granberg Annina Raita Birgitta Lehtinen Aliisa M Tiihonen Juha Kesseli Matti Annala Alejandra Rodriguez-Martinez Kristiina Nordfors Wei Zhang Tapio Visakorpi Matti Nykter Hannu Haapasalo

Histol Histopathol 2020 Jul 29;35(7):673-680. Epub 2019 Oct 29.

Fimlab Laboratories Ltd., Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

Deregulation of fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) signaling is tightly associated with numerous human malignancies, including cancer. Indeed, FGFR inhibitors are being tested as anti-tumor drugs in clinical trials. Among gliomas, FGFR3 fusions occur in IDH wild-type diffuse gliomas leading to high FGFR3 protein expression and both, FGFR3 and FGFR1, show elevated expression in aggressive ependymomas. The aim of this study was to uncover the expression of FGFR1 and FGFR3 proteins in choroid plexus tumors and to further characterize FGFR-related as well as other genetic alterations in FGFR3 expressing tumors. Expression levels of FGFR1 and FGFR3 were detected in 15 choroid plexus tumor tissues using immunohistochemistry of tissue microarrays and 6 samples were subjected to whole mount FGFR3 staining. Targeted sequencing was used for deeper molecular analysis of two FGFR3 positive cases. Moderate expression of FGFR1 or FGFR3 was evidenced in one third of the studied choroid plexus tumors. Targeted sequencing of a choroid plexus carcinoma and an atypical choroid plexus papilloma, both with moderate-to-strong FGFR3 expression, revealed lack of protein-altering mutations or fusions in FGFR1 or FGFR3, but TP53 was altered in both tumors. FGFR3 and FGFR1 proteins are expressed in a subpopulation of choroid plexus tumors. Further studies using larger cohorts of patients will allow identification of the clinicopathological implications of FGFR1 and FGFR3 expression in choroid plexus tumors.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.14670/HH-18-180DOI Listing
July 2020

Characterization of immune response against Mycobacterium marinum infection in the main hematopoietic organ of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio).

Authors:
Sanna-Kaisa E Harjula Anni K Saralahti Markus J T Ojanen Tommi Rantapero Meri I E Uusi-Mäkelä Matti Nykter Olli Lohi Mataleena Parikka Mika Rämet

Dev Comp Immunol 2020 02 15;103:103523. Epub 2019 Oct 15.

Laboratory of Experimental Immunology, BioMediTech, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, FI-33014, Tampere University, Finland; Department of Pediatrics, Tampere University Hospital, P.O. Box 2000, FI-33521, Tampere, Finland; PEDEGO Research Unit, Medical Research Center Oulu, P.O. Box 8000, FI-90014, University of Oulu, Finland; Department of Children and Adolescents, Oulu University Hospital, P.O. Box 10, FI-90029, OYS, Finland. Electronic address:

Tuberculosis remains a major global health challenge. To gain information about genes important for defense against tuberculosis, we used a well-established tuberculosis model; Mycobacterium marinum infection in adult zebrafish. To characterize the immunological response to mycobacterial infection at 14 days post infection, we performed a whole-genome level transcriptome analysis using cells from kidney, the main hematopoietic organ of adult zebrafish. Among the upregulated genes, those associated with immune signaling and regulation formed the largest category, whereas the largest group of downregulated genes had a metabolic role. We also performed a forward genetic screen in adult zebrafish and identified a fish line with severely impaired survival during chronic mycobacterial infection. Based on transcriptome analysis, these fish have decreased expression of several immunological genes. Taken together, these results give new information about the genes involved in the defense against mycobacterial infection in zebrafish.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dci.2019.103523DOI Listing
February 2020

Supervised pathway analysis of blood gene expression profiles in Alzheimer's disease.

Authors:
Elaheh Moradi Mikael Marttinen Tomi Häkkinen Mikko Hiltunen Matti Nykter

Neurobiol Aging 2019 12 16;84:98-108. Epub 2019 Jul 16.

Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.

Early identification and treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is hampered by the lack of easily accessible biomarkers. Currently available fluid biomarkers of AD provide indications of the disease stage; however, these are measured in the cerebrospinal fluid, requiring invasive procedures, which are not applicable at the population level. Thus, gene expression profiling of blood provides a viable alternative as a way to screen individuals at risk of AD. Previous studies have shown that despite the limited permeability of the blood-brain barriers, expression profiles of blood genes can be used for the diagnosis and prognosis of several brain disorders. Here, we propose a new approach to pathway analysis of blood gene expression profiles to classify healthy (control [CTL]), mildly cognitively impaired (mild cognitive impairment [MCI]; preclinical stage of AD), and AD subjects. In the pathway analysis, gene expression data are mapped to pathway scores according to a predefined gene set instead of considering each gene separately. The robustness of the analysis enables detection of weak differences between groups owing to the inherent dimension reduction. Our proposed method for pathway analysis takes advantage of linear discriminant analysis for identifying a linear combination of features best separating groups of subjects within each gene set. The gene expression data were retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus (batch 1: GSE63060; batch 2: GSE63061). Predefined gene sets for pathway analysis were obtained from the Broad Institute Collection of Curated Pathways. The method achieved a 10-fold cross-validated area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.84 for classification of AD versus CTL and 0.80 for classification of mild cognitive impairment versus CTL. These results reveal the good potential of blood-based biomarkers for assisting early diagnosis and disease monitoring of AD.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.07.004DOI Listing
December 2019

Nrf2 and SQSTM1/p62 jointly contribute to mesenchymal transition and invasion in glioblastoma.

Authors:
Petri Pölönen Ashik Jawahar Deen Hanna M Leinonen Henna-Kaisa Jyrkkänen Suvi Kuosmanen Mimmi Mononen Ashish Jain Tomi Tuomainen Sanna Pasonen-Seppänen Jaana M Hartikainen Arto Mannermaa Matti Nykter Pasi Tavi Terje Johansen Merja Heinäniemi Anna-Liisa Levonen

Oncogene 2019 12 23;38(50):7473-7490. Epub 2019 Aug 23.

Department of Biotechnology and Molecular Medicine, A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 1627, FIN-70211, Kuopio, Finland.

Accumulating evidence suggests that constitutively active Nrf2 has a pivotal role in cancer as it induces pro-survival genes that promote cancer cell proliferation and chemoresistance. The mechanisms of Nrf2 dysregulation and functions in cancer have not been fully characterized. Here, we jointly analyzed the Broad-Novartis Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) multi-omics data in order to identify cancer types where Nrf2 activation is present. We found that Nrf2 is hyperactivated in a subset of glioblastoma (GBM) patients, whose tumors display a mesenchymal subtype, and uncover several different mechanisms contributing to increased Nrf2 activity. Importantly, we identified a positive feedback loop between SQSTM1/p62 and Nrf2 as a mechanism for activation of the Nrf2 pathway. We also show that autophagy and serine/threonine signaling regulates p62 mediated Keap1 degradation. Our results in glioma cell lines indicate that both Nrf2 and p62 promote proliferation, invasion and mesenchymal transition. Finally, Nrf2 activity was associated with decreased progression free survival in TCGA GBM patient samples, suggesting that treatments have limited efficacy if this transcription factor is overactivated. Overall, our findings place Nrf2 and p62 as the key components of the mesenchymal subtype network, with implications to tumorigenesis and treatment resistance. Thus, Nrf2 activation could be used as a surrogate prognostic marker in mesenchymal subtype GBMs. Furthermore, strategies aiming at either inhibiting Nrf2 or exploiting Nrf2 hyperactivity for targeted gene therapy may provide novel treatment options for this subset of GBM.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41388-019-0956-6DOI Listing
December 2019

Cytokeratin-Supervised Deep Learning for Automatic Recognition of Epithelial Cells in Breast Cancers Stained for ER, PR, and Ki-67.

Authors:
Mira Valkonen Jorma Isola Onni Ylinen Ville Muhonen Anna Saxlin Teemu Tolonen Matti Nykter Pekka Ruusuvuori

IEEE Trans Med Imaging 2020 02 7;39(2):534-542. Epub 2019 Aug 7.

Immunohistochemistry (IHC) of ER, PR, and Ki-67 are routinely used assays in breast cancer diagnostics. Determination of the proportion of stained cells (labeling index) should be restricted on malignant epithelial cells, carefully avoiding tumor infiltrating stroma and inflammatory cells. Here, we developed a deep learning based digital mask for automated epithelial cell detection using fluoro-chromogenic cytokeratin-Ki-67 double staining and sequential hematoxylin-IHC staining as training material. A partially pre-trained deep convolutional neural network was fine-tuned using image batches from 152 patient samples of invasive breast tumors. Validity of the trained digital epithelial cell masks was studied with 366 images captured from 98 unseen samples, by comparing the epithelial cell masks to cytokeratin images and by visual evaluation of the brightfield images performed by two pathologists. A good discrimination of epithelial cells was achieved (AUC of mean ROC = 0.93; defined as the area under mean receiver operating characteristics), and well in concordance with pathologists' visual assessment (4.01/5 and 4.67/5). The effect of epithelial cell masking on the Ki-67 labeling index was substantial. 52 tumor images initially classified as low proliferation (Ki-67 < 14%) without epithelial cell masking were re-classified as high proliferation (Ki-67 ≥ 14%) after applying the deep learning based epithelial cell mask. The digital epithelial cell masks were found applicable also to IHC of ER and PR. We conclude that deep learning can be applied to detect carcinoma cells in breast cancer samples stained with conventional brightfield IHC.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TMI.2019.2933656DOI Listing
February 2020

Data-driven characterization of molecular phenotypes across heterogeneous sample collections.

Authors:
Juha Mehtonen Petri Pölönen Sergei Häyrynen Olli Dufva Jake Lin Thomas Liuksiala Kirsi Granberg Olli Lohi Ville Hautamäki Matti Nykter Merja Heinäniemi

Nucleic Acids Res 2019 07;47(13):e76

Institute of Biomedicine, School of Medicine, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.

Existing large gene expression data repositories hold enormous potential to elucidate disease mechanisms, characterize changes in cellular pathways, and to stratify patients based on molecular profiles. To achieve this goal, integrative resources and tools are needed that allow comparison of results across datasets and data types. We propose an intuitive approach for data-driven stratifications of molecular profiles and benchmark our methodology using the dimensionality reduction algorithm t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) with multi-study and multi-platform data on hematological malignancies. Our approach enables assessing the contribution of biological versus technical variation to sample clustering, direct incorporation of additional datasets to the same low dimensional representation, comparison of molecular disease subtypes identified from separate t-SNE representations, and characterization of the obtained clusters based on pathway databases and additional data. In this manner, we performed an integrative analysis across multi-omics acute myeloid leukemia studies. Our approach indicated new molecular subtypes with differential survival and drug responsiveness among samples lacking fusion genes, including a novel myelodysplastic syndrome-like cluster and a cluster characterized with CEBPA mutations and differential activity of the S-adenosylmethionine-dependent DNA methylation pathway. In summary, integration across multiple studies can help to identify novel molecular disease subtypes and generate insight into disease biology.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkz281DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6648337PMC
July 2019

Evaluation of Commercial Circulating Tumor DNA Test in Metastatic Prostate Cancer.

Authors:
Sinja Taavitsainen Matti Annala Elisa Ledet Kevin Beja Patrick J Miller Marcus Moses Matti Nykter Kim N Chi Oliver Sartor Alexander W Wyatt

JCO Precis Oncol 2019 12;3. Epub 2019 Jun 12.

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Purpose: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) sequencing provides a minimally invasive method for tumor molecular stratification. Commercial ctDNA sequencing is increasingly used in the clinic, but its accuracy in metastatic prostate cancer is untested. We compared the commercial Guardant360 ctDNA test against an academic sequencing approach for profiling metastatic prostate cancer.

Patients And Methods: Plasma cell-free DNA was collected between September 2016 and April 2018 from 24 patients with clinically progressive metastatic prostate cancer representing a range of clinical scenarios. Each sample was analyzed using Guardant360 and a research panel encompassing 73 prostate cancer genes. Concordance of somatic mutation and copy number calls was evaluated between the two approaches.

Results: Targeted sequencing independently confirmed 94% of somatic mutations identified by Guardant360 at an allele fraction greater than 1%. amplifications and mutations were detected with high concordance in 14 patients, with only three discordant subclonal mutations at an allele fraction lower than 0.5%. Many somatic mutations identified by Guardant360 at an allele fraction lower than 1% seemed to represent subclonal passenger events or non-prostate-derived clones. Most of the non- gene amplifications reported by Guardant360 represented single copy gains. The research approach detected several clinically relevant DNA repair gene alterations not reported by Guardant360, including four germline truncating / mutations, two somatic stop gain mutations, one biallelic deletion, 11 stop gain reversal mutations in a patient treated with olaparib, and a hypermutator phenotype in a patient sample with 42 mutations per megabase.

Conclusion: Guardant360 accurately identifies somatic ctDNA mutations in patients with metastatic prostate cancer, but low allele frequency mutations should be interpreted with caution. Test utility in metastatic prostate cancer is currently limited by the lack of reporting on actionable deletions, rearrangements, and germline mutations.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/PO.19.00014DOI Listing
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7446428PMC
June 2019

Editor's Note: Genomic and Molecular Characterization of Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor Identifies the IGF1R Pathway as a Primary Target for Treatment.

Authors:
Jilong Yang Antti Ylipää Yan Sun Hong Zheng Kexin Chen Matti Nykter Jonathan Trent Nancy Ratner Dina C Lev Wei Zhang

Clin Cancer Res 2019 May;25(10):3195

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-19-1144DOI Listing
May 2019
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