Biomedical subjects

Edison Tak-Bun Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Edison Tak-Bun Liu.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

THY1 is a candidate tumour suppressor gene with decreased expression in metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Using oligonucleotide microarray analysis, THY1, mapping close to a previously defined 11q22-23 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) critical region was identified as showing consistent downregulated expression in the tumour segregants, as compared to their parental tumour-suppressing microcell hybrids (MCHs). Gene expression and protein analyses show that THY1 was not expressed in the NPC HONE1 recipient cells, tumour segregants, and other NPC cell lines; THY1 was exclusively expressed in the non-tumourigenic MCHs. The mechanism of THY1 gene inactivation in these cell lines was attributed to hypermethylation. Clinical study showed that in 65% of NPC specimens there was either downregulation or loss of THY1 gene expression. Using a tissue microarray and immunohistochemical staining, 44% of the NPC cases showed downregulated expression of THY1 and 9% lost THY1 expression. The frequency of THY1 downregulated expression in lymph node metastatic NPC was 63%, which was significantly higher than in the primary tumour (33%). After transfection of THY1 gene into HONE1 cells, a dramatic reduction of colony formation ability was observed. These findings suggest that THY1 is a good candidate tumour suppressor gene in NPC, which is significantly associated with lymph node metastases.

Carcinoma↗

PubMed2004

Fine mapping of the 11q22-23 tumor suppressive region and involvement of TSLC1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Previous studies transferring an intact chromosome 11 into HONE1 cells demonstrated the functional significance of chromosome regions, 11q13 and 11q22-23, in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) development. In our study the 11q22-23 region was comprehensively re-investigated by detailed microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping and by fluorescence in situ hybridization to map precisely the regions containing tumor suppressive activity. We observed 3 chromosomal intervals within 11q22-23 that were commonly lost in the tumor segregants derived from HONE1/chromosome 11 hybrids. One critical region of 0.36 Mb was mapped near the marker D11S2000 and a second 0.44 Mb region was located around the markers D11S1300 and D11S1391. In a third region high allelic loss was also observed at marker D11S4484, where a newly cloned tumor suppressor gene, TSLC1 (tumor suppressor in lung cancer 1), is located. The gene expression analysis showed absence or low expression levels of TSLC1 mRNA in 4 highly tumorigenic NPC cell lines. In addition, the methylation study results show that the TSLC1 promoter region was hypermethylated in all 4 NPC cell lines and re-expression of the gene occurs in HONE1 cells after 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine treatment. Hence, the mode of silencing of this candidate TSG in NPC may be attributed to promoter hypermethylation. We have obtained functional evidence for multiple critical tumor suppressive regions in 11q22-23 by fine deletion mapping and for inactivation of TSLC1 being one of these candidate TSGs in NPC development.

Carcinoma↗

PubMed2004

Different gene expression profiles between microsatellite instability-high and microsatellite stable colorectal carcinomas.

Recent molecular genetic studies have revealed that two major types of genomic instabilities, chromosomal instability (CIN) and microsatellite instability (MSI), exist in colorectal carcinomas. In order to clarify the molecular signature related to the CIN and MSI in colorectal carcinomas, we performed transcriptomic expression analysis on eight microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) colorectal carcinomas and compared the results obtained with that of nine microsatellite stable (MSS) colorectal carcinomas using oligonucleotide microarrays containing 17 334 known genes and 1331 unknown genes or expression sequence tags (ESTs). Unsupervised two-way hierarchical clustering with 5724 genes successfully classified tumors from normal mucosa, and displayed a distinctive MSI-H carcinomas subgroup. Based on intensive filtering, 57 known genes and eight ESTs were found to be highly relevant to the differentiation of MSI-H and MSS colorectal carcinomas. These genes successfully distinguish the new test set of six MSI-H and five MSS colorectal carcinomas. Many up- and downregulated genes in MSI-H colorectal carcinomas were related to the previously reported phenotypic characteristics; increased mucin production and intense peritumoral immune response in MSI-H carcinomas. Some of these differences were confirmed by semiquantitative reverse transcription-PCR and immunohistochemical analysis. Our findings indicate that there are many different genetic and transcriptomic characteristics between MSI-H and MSS colorectal carcinomas, and some of these differently expressed genes can be used as diagnostic or prognostic markers.

Base Sequence↗