Biomedical subjects

Pu Yan

Publications and source records attributed to Pu Yan.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

An agarose matrix facilitates sectioning of tissue microarray blocks.

Tissue microarray (TMA) is a powerful, high-throughput technique for in situ investigation of biomarkers in many tissue samples in a paraffin block by immunohistochemistry or fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and has rapidly become the standard in marker studies. One of the difficult steps in the procedure is the sectioning of array blocks and mounting of sections using special slides and/or adhesive-coated tape, which demands specific experience and is time-consuming. We report an arraying method that allows melting of the receiving paraffin block and subsequent sectioning like any ordinary paraffin-embedded tissue block. The major difference from the standard microarray technique is the use of an agarose matrix in the recipient block. The agarose matrix allows melting of the paraffin without disturbing the array, resulting in perfect integration of the tissue cores. The agarose-paraffin TMA blocks limit tissue core loss during cutting, mounting, or immunohistochemical or FISH staining and better maintains the array.

ErbB Receptors↗

PubMed2004

Immunohistochemical localization of hTERT protein in human tissues.

Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex mainly composed of a reverse transcriptase catalytic subunit (telomerase reverse transcriptase gene, hTERT) that copies a template region of its RNA subunit to the end of the telomere. For detecting telomerase activity in a tissue specimen the TRAP assay is a relatively sensitive and specific method, but it can be used only on fresh tissue extracts and offers no information at the single cell level. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) allows to detect hTERT protein expression at an individual cell level in human tissues. We have tested commercially available anti-hTERT antibodies in formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded human tissues by IHC. Only one monoclonal antibody (NCL-hTERT; Novacastra) was sufficiently specific and this was applied to human tissues in which telomerase activity had been shown by TRAP assay and hTERT mRNA expression by RT-PCR. hTERT protein localized diffusely in the nucleoplasm and more intensely in the nucleoli of cancer cells and proliferating normal cells. Mitotic cells showed diffuse staining of the entire cell. Granular cytoplasmic staining was occasionally found in some tumor cells. In telomerase-positive tumors not all the tumor cells showed hTERT immunoreactivity. A significantly heterogeneous hTERT protein expression was observed in human tumor tissues. The hTERT immunostaining in fixed tissues was concordant with telomerase activity and hTERT mRNA expression in corresponding non-fixed samples. Quantitative RT-PCR of microdissected sections showed that hTERT mRNA expression was higher in cells with nuclear expression than in those with cytoplasmic expression. Double staining with the M30 antibody showed that a subpopulation of hTERT-negative cells is apoptotic. We conclude that: (1) hTERT protein can be detected by IHC in fixed human tissues, but the choice of the antibody, tissue processing, and reaction conditions are critical, (2) hTERT protein localizes in the nucleoplasm, more strongly in the nucleolus, and occasionally in the cytoplasm, (3) telomerase-positive tumors show significant heterogeneity of hTERT protein expression, and (4) a subpopulation of hTERT protein negative tumor cells is identified as apoptotic cells.

Adenocarcinoma↗

PubMed2003

Hypermethylation-mediated regulation of CD44 gene expression in human neuroblastoma.

The CD44 adhesion receptor is silenced in highly malignant neuroblastomas (NBs) with MYCN amplification. Because its functional expression is associated with decreased tumorigenic properties, CD44 behaves as a tumor suppressor gene in NB and other cancers. Given that the precise mechanisms responsible for CD44 silencing are not elucidated, we investigated whether CD44 expression could be regulated by DNA hypermethylation. The methylation status of CD44 gene promoter and exon 1 regions was analyzed in 12 NB cell lines and 21 clinical samples after bisulfite genomic modification, followed by PCR and single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis and genomic sequencing. The results showed that almost all CD44-negative cell lines displayed hypermethylation in both regions, whereas all CD44-expressing cell lines were unmethylated. These observations correlated with the ability to restore CD44 mRNA and protein expression by treatment of CD44-negative cells with the 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine demethylating agent. In contrast, no CD44 gene hypermethylation could be detected in 21 NB clinical samples of different stages, irrespective of CD44 expression. Although our results suggest that aberrant methylation of promoter and exon 1 regions is involved in CD44 silencing in NB cell lines, they also indicate that methylation of unidentified regulatory sequences or methylation-independent mechanisms also control the expression of CD44 in primary NB tumors and cell lines. We therefore conclude that CD44 silencing is controlled by complex and tumor cell-specific processes, including gene hypermethylation. Further investigation of other mechanisms and genes involved in CD44 regulation will be needed before demethylation-mediated reactivation of the CD44 gene can be considered as therapeutic strategy for neuroblastoma and perhaps other related cancers.

Azacitidine↗

PubMed2002

Hypermethylation of the human telomerase catalytic subunit (hTERT) gene correlates with telomerase activity.

DNA methylation is an epigenetic process involved in embryonic development, differentiation and aging. It is 1 of the mechanisms resulting in gene silencing in carcinogenesis, especially in tumor suppressor genes (e.g., p16, Rb). Telomerase, the DNA polymerase adding TTAGGG repeats to the chromosome end, is involved in the regulation of the replicative life span by maintaining telomere length. This enzyme is activated in germ and stem cells, repressed in normal somatic cells and reactivated in a large majority of tumor cells. The promoter region of the hTERT gene, encoding for the catalytic subunit of human telomerase, has been located in a CpG island and may therefore be regulated at least in part by DNA methylation. We analyzed the methylation status of 27 CpG sites within the hTERT promoter core region by methylation-sensitive single-strand conformation analysis (MS-SSCA) and direct sequencing using bisulfite-modified DNA in 56 human tumor cell lines, as well as tumor and normal tissues from different organs. A positive correlation was observed among hypermethylation of the hTERT promoter, hTERT mRNA expression and telomerase activity (p < 0.00001). Furthermore, this correlation was confirmed in normal tissues where hypermethylation of the hTERT promoter was found exclusively in hTERT-expressing telomerase-positive samples and was absent in telomerase-negative samples (p < 0.00002). Since tumor tissues contain also nonneoplastic stromal elements, we performed microdissection to allow confirmation that the hTERT promoter methylation truly occurred in tumor cells. Our results suggest that methylation may be involved in the regulation of hTERT gene expression. To our knowledge, this is the first gene in which methylation of its promoter sequence has been found to be positively correlated with gene expression.

DNA Methylation↗

PubMed2002

Doxorubicin-induced death in neuroblastoma does not involve death receptors in S-type cells and is caspase-independent in N-type cells.

Death induced by doxorubicin (dox) in neuroblastoma (NB) cells was originally thought to occur via the Fas pathway, however since studies suggest that caspase-8 expression is silenced in most high stage NB tumors, it is more probable that dox-induced death occurs via a different mechanism. Caspase-8 silenced N-type invasive NB cell lines LAN-1 and IMR-32 were investigated for their sensitivity to dox, and compared to S-type noninvasive SH-EP NB cells expressing caspase-8. All cell lines had similar sensitivities to dox, independently of caspase-8 expression. Dox induced caspase-3, -7, -8 and -9 and Bid cleavage in S-type cells and death was blocked by caspase inhibitors but not by oxygen radical scavenger BHA. In contrast, dox-induced death in N-type cells was caspase-independent and was inhibited by BHA. Dox induced a drop in mitochondrial membrane permeability in all cell lines. Dox-induced death in S-type cells gave rise to apoptotic nuclei, whereas in N-type cells nuclei were non-apoptotic in morphology. Transfection of SH-EP cells with a dominant negative FADD mutant inhibited TRAIL-induced death, but had no effect on dox-induced apoptosis. These results suggest that S-type cells undergo apoptosis after dox treatment independently of death receptors, whereas N-type cells are killed by a caspase-independent mechanism.

Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing↗

PubMed2002

Telomerase activity and hTERT mRNA expression can be heterogeneous and does not correlate with telomere length in soft tissue sarcomas.

In a previous study, we showed that telomerase activity (TA) and human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) mRNA expression were undetectable in benign mesenchymal lesions and low-grade soft tissue sarcomas (STSs), but detectable in about 50% of intermediate-/high-grade STSs. We wondered if this lack of TA or hTERT mRNA expression could be related to the tumor sample examined and if there was a relationship between the former 2 parameters and telomere length. Two separate tumor samples from 37 STSs were examined for telomerase activity, using the telomerase repeat amplification protocol (TRAP) assay and for hTERT mRNA expression, using RT-PCR. Telomere length was determined in each tumor sample, using the terminal restriction fragments (TRF) technique. Significant variations in telomere length, TA and hTERT mRNA expression between 2 samples of the same tumor were observed in 27%, 11% and 27% of STSs, respectively. Telomere length did not correlate with TA or hTERT mRNA expression. Despite great intratumoral heterogeneity in telomere length, short and long telomeres were more often seen in the low/intermediate-grade and high-grade STS categories, respectively. Few STSs that showed a TRF pattern suggestive of alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) may contain ALT subpopulations.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

The human telomerase RNA gene (hTERC) is regulated during carcinogenesis but is not dependent on DNA methylation.

Telomerase, the ribonucleoprotein complex involved in telomere maintenance, is composed of two main components: hTERT and hTERC. hTERT seems to be the rate-limiting factor for telomerase activity, although hTERC expression was also shown to correlate to a certain extent with telomerase reactivation. To determine whether the absence of hTERC expression could be the consequence of DNA methylation, we quantified hTERC RNA in 60 human samples (19 telomerase-negative normal tissues, nine telomerase-positive and 22 telomerase-negative tumor tissues, eight telomerase-positive and two telomerase-negative cell lines) using a quantitative dot blot on RT-PCR products. Most of the normal tissues did not express hTERC whereas, in telomerase-positive cell lines and in telomerase-positive tumor tissues, a strong up-regulation was observed, suggesting that hTERC transcription is up-regulated during tumorigenesis. The two telomerase-negative cell lines did not express hTERC. In a series of 22 telomerase-negative soft tissue sarcomas (STS), half did not express hTERC at all, or only weakly, whereas a wide range of expression was observed in the other half. As methylation might be involved in hTERC silencing, we examined the methylation pattern in all samples by direct sequencing and methylation-specific single stand conformation analysis after bisulfite modification. hTERC methylation was never observed, neither in normal nor in tumor tissues. Furthermore, there was no correlation between hTERC expression and proliferation, telomere length or hTERT expression in telomerase-negative STS. In contrast, three of eight telomerase-positive cell lines and the two telomerase negative cell lines were found to be hypermethylated, suggesting that the methylation observed may occur during cell line establishment. In conclusion, this study shows that hTERC expression is indeed regulated during carcinogenesis, but this regulation is unlikely to depend on hTERC methylation, cell proliferation rate, telomere length or hTERT expression.

Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic↗