Exploring chitosan-shelled nanobubbles to improve HER2 + immunotherapy via dendritic cell targeting

Immunotherapy is a valuable approach to cancer treatment as it is able to activate the immune system. However, the curative methods currently in clinical practice, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, present some limitations. Dendritic cell vaccination has been investigated as an immunotherapeutic strategy, and nanotechnology-based delivery systems have emerged as powerful tools for improving immunotherapy and vaccine development. A number of nanodelivery systems have therefore been proposed to promote cancer immunotherapy. This work aims to design a novel immunotherapy nanoplatform for the treatment of HER2 + breast cancer, and specially tailored chitosan-shelled nanobubbles (NBs) have been developed for the delivery of a DNA vaccine. The NBs have been functionalized with anti-CD1a antibodies to target dendritic cells (DCs). The NB formulations possess dimensions of approximately 300 nm and positive surface charge, and also show good physical stability up to 6 months under storage at 4 °C. In vitro characterization has confirmed that these NBs are capable of loading DNA with good encapsulation efficiency (82%). The antiCD1a-functionalized NBs are designed to target DCs, and demonstrated the ability to induce DC activation in both human and mouse cell models, and also elicited a specific immune response that was capable of slowing tumor growth in mice in vivo. These findings are the proof of concept that loading a tumor vaccine into DC-targeted chitosan nanobubbles may become an attractive nanotechnology approach for the future immunotherapeutic treatment of cancer. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT: [Image: see text

The Scaffold Protein p140Cap as a Molecular Hub for Limiting Cancer Progression: A New Paradigm in Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma, the most common extra-cranial pediatric solid tumor, is responsible for 9–15% of all pediatric cancer deaths. Its intrinsic heterogeneity makes it difficult to successfully treat, resulting in overall survival of 50% for half of the patients. Here we analyze the role in neuroblastoma of the adaptor protein p140Cap, encoded by the SRCIN1 gene. RNA-Seq profiles of a large cohort of neuroblastoma patients show that SRCIN1 mRNA levels are an independent risk factor inversely correlated to disease aggressiveness. In high-risk patients, SRCIN1 was frequently altered by hemizygous deletion, copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, or disruption. Functional assays demonstrated that p140Cap is causal in dampening both Src and Jak2 kinase activation and STAT3 phosphorylation. Moreover, p140Cap expression decreases in vitro migration and anchorage-independent cell growth, and impairs in vivo tumor progression, in terms of tumor volume and number of spontaneous lung metastasis. p140Cap also contributes to an increased sensitivity of neuroblastoma cells to chemotherapy drugs and to the combined usage of doxorubicin and etoposide with Src inhibitors. Overall, we provide the first evidence that SRCIN1/p140Cap is a new independent prognostic marker for patient outcome and treatment, with a causal role in curbing the aggressiveness of neuroblastoma. We highlight the potential clinical impact of SRCIN1/p140Cap expression in neuroblastoma tumors, in terms of reducing cytotoxic effects of chemotherapy, one of the main issues for pediatric tumor treatment

A Role for the Long Noncoding RNA SENCR in Commitment and Function of Endothelial Cells

Despite the increasing importance of long non-coding RNA in physiology and disease, their role in endothelial biology remains poorly understood. Growing evidence has highlighted them to be essential regulators of human embryonic stem cell differentiation. SENCR, a vascular-enriched long non-coding RNA, overlaps the Friend Leukemia Integration virus 1 (FLI1) gene, a regulator of endothelial development. Therefore, we wanted to test the hypothesis that SENCR may contribute to mesodermal and endothelial commitment as well as in endothelial function. We thus developed new differentiation protocols allowing generation of endothelial cells from human embryonic stem cells using both directed and haemogenic routes. The expression of SENCR was markedly regulated during endothelial commitment using both protocols. SENCR did not control the pluripotency of pluripotent cells; however its overexpression significantly potentiated early mesodermal and endothelial commitment. In HUVEC, SENCR induced proliferation, migration and angiogenesis. SENCR expression was altered in vascular tissue and cells derived from patients with critical limb ischemia and premature coronary artery disease compared to controls. Here, we showed that SENCR contributes to the regulation of endothelial differentiation from pluripotent cells and controls the angiogenic capacity of HUVEC. These data give novel insight into the regulatory processes involved in endothelial development and function

Optimisation of laboratory methods for whole transcriptomic RNA analyses in human left ventricular biopsies and blood samples of clinical relevance

This study aimed to optimise techniques for whole transcriptome and small RNA analyses on clinical tissue samples from patients with cardiovascular disease. Clinical samples often represent a particular challenge to extracting RNA of sufficient quality for robust RNA sequencing analysis, and due to availability, it is rarely possible to optimise techniques on the samples themselves. Therefore, we have used equivalent samples from pigs undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass surgery to test different protocols for optimal RNA extraction, and then validated the protocols in human samples. Here we present an assessment of the quality and quantity of RNA obtained using a variety of commercially-available RNA extraction kits on both left ventricular biopsies and blood plasma. RNA extraction from these samples presents different difficulties; left ventricular biopsies are small and fibrous, while blood plasma has a low RNA content. We have validated our optimised extraction techniques on human clinical samples collected as part of the ARCADIA (Association of non-coding RNAs with Coronary Artery Disease and type 2 Diabetes) cohort study, resulting in successful whole transcriptome and small RNA sequencing of human left ventricular tissue