Colon cancer-derived oncogenic EGFR G724S mutant identified by whole genome sequence analysis is dependent on asymmetric dimerization and sensitive to cetuximab

Background: Inhibition of the activated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) with either enzymatic kinase inhibitors or anti-EGFR antibodies such as cetuximab, is an effective modality of treatment for multiple human cancers. Enzymatic EGFR inhibitors are effective for lung adenocarcinomas with somatic kinase domain EGFR mutations while, paradoxically, anti-EGFR antibodies are more effective in colon and head and neck cancers where EGFR mutations occur less frequently. In colorectal cancer, anti-EGFR antibodies are routinely used as second-line therapy of KRAS wild-type tumors. However, detailed mechanisms and genomic predictors for pharmacological response to these antibodies in colon cancer remain unclear. Findings: We describe a case of colorectal adenocarcinoma, which was found to harbor a kinase domain mutation, G724S, in EGFR through whole genome sequencing. We show that G724S mutant EGFR is oncogenic and that it differs from classic lung cancer derived EGFR mutants in that it is cetuximab responsive in vitro, yet relatively insensitive to small molecule kinase inhibitors. Through biochemical and cellular pharmacologic studies, we have determined that cells harboring the colon cancer-derived G719S and G724S mutants are responsive to cetuximab therapy in vitro and found that the requirement for asymmetric dimerization of these mutant EGFR to promote cellular transformation may explain their greater inhibition by cetuximab than small-molecule kinase inhibitors. Conclusion: The colon-cancer derived G719S and G724S mutants are oncogenic and sensitive in vitro to cetuximab. These data suggest that patients with these mutations may benefit from the use of anti-EGFR antibodies as part of the first-line therapy

The Mitochondrial Fusion-Promoting Factor Mitofusin Is a Substrate of the PINK1/Parkin Pathway

Loss-of-function mutations in the PINK1 or parkin genes result in recessive heritable forms of parkinsonism. Genetic studies of Drosophila orthologs of PINK1 and parkin indicate that PINK1, a mitochondrially targeted serine/threonine kinase, acts upstream of Parkin, a cytosolic ubiquitin-protein ligase, to promote mitochondrial fragmentation, although the molecular mechanisms by which the PINK1/Parkin pathway promotes mitochondrial fragmentation are unknown. We tested the hypothesis that PINK1 and Parkin promote mitochondrial fragmentation by targeting core components of the mitochondrial morphogenesis machinery for ubiquitination. We report that the steady-state abundance of the mitochondrial fusion-promoting factor Mitofusin (dMfn) is inversely correlated with the activity of PINK1 and Parkin in Drosophila. We further report that dMfn is ubiquitinated in a PINK1- and Parkin-dependent fashion and that dMfn co-immunoprecipitates with Parkin. By contrast, perturbations of PINK1 or Parkin did not influence the steady-state abundance of the mitochondrial fission-promoting factor Drp1 or the mitochondrial fusion-promoting factor Opa1, or the subcellular distribution of Drp1. Our findings suggest that dMfn is a direct substrate of the PINK1/Parkin pathway and that the mitochondrial morphological alterations and tissue degeneration phenotypes that derive from mutations in PINK1 and parkin result at least in part from reduced ubiquitin-mediated turnover of dMfn

Inflammatory and haematological markers in the maternal, umbilical cord and infant circulation in histological chorioamnionitis

BACKGROUND: The relationship between histological chorioamnionitis and haematological and biochemical markers in mothers and infants at delivery, and in infants postnatally, is incompletely characterised. These markers are widely used in the diagnosis of maternal and neonatal infection. Our objective was to investigate the effects of histological chorioamnionitis (HCA) on haematological and biochemical inflammatory markers in mothers and infants at delivery, and in infants post-delivery. METHODS: Two hundred and forty seven mothers, delivering 325 infants, were recruited at the only tertiary perinatal centre in Western Australia. Placentae were assessed for evidence of HCA using a semi-quantitative scoring system. Maternal high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), procalcitonin, and umbilical cord hsCRP, procalcitonin, white cell count and absolute neutrophil count were measured at delivery. In infants where sepsis was clinically suspected, postnatal CRP, white cell count and absolute neutrophil count were measured up to 48 hours of age. The effect of HCA on maternal, cord and neonatal markers was evaluated by multivariable regression analysis. RESULTS: The median gestational age was 34 weeks and HCA was present in 26 of 247 (10.5%) placentae. Mothers whose pregnancies were complicated by HCA had higher hsCRP (median 26 (range 2-107) versus 5.6 (0-108) mg/L; P<0.001). Histological chorioamnionitis was associated with higher umbilical cord hsCRP (75(th) percentile 2.91 mg/L (range 0-63.9) versus 75(th) percentile 0 mg/L (0-45.6); P<0.001) and procalcitonin (median 0.293 (range 0.05-27.37) versus median 0.064 (range 0.01-5.24) ug/L; P<0.001), with a sustained increase in neonatal absolute neutrophil count (median 4.5 (0.1-26.4)x10(9)/L versus 3.0 (0.1-17.8)x10(9)/L), and CRP up to 48 hours post-partum (median 10 versus 6.5 mg/L) (P<0.05 for each). CONCLUSION: Histological chorioamnionitis is associated with modest systemic inflammation in maternal and cord blood. These systemic changes may increase postnatally, potentially undermining their utility in the diagnosis of early-onset neonatal infection

Decreased Autocrine EGFR Signaling in Metastatic Breast Cancer Cells Inhibits Tumor Growth in Bone and Mammary Fat Pad

Breast cancer metastasis to bone triggers a vicious cycle of tumor growth linked to osteolysis. Breast cancer cells and osteoblasts express the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and produce ErbB family ligands, suggesting participation of these growth factors in autocrine and paracrine signaling within the bone microenvironment. EGFR ligand expression was profiled in the bone metastatic MDA-MB-231 cells (MDA-231), and agonist-induced signaling was examined in both breast cancer and osteoblast-like cells. Both paracrine and autocrine EGFR signaling were inhibited with a neutralizing amphiregulin antibody, PAR34, whereas shRNA to the EGFR was used to specifically block autocrine signaling in MDA-231 cells. The impact of these was evaluated with proliferation, migration and gene expression assays. Breast cancer metastasis to bone was modeled in female athymic nude mice with intratibial inoculation of MDA-231 cells, and cancer cell-bone marrow co-cultures. EGFR knockdown, but not PAR34 treatment, decreased osteoclasts formed in vitro (p<0.01), reduced osteolytic lesion tumor volume (p<0.01), increased survivorship in vivo (p<0.001), and resulted in decreased MDA-231 growth in the fat pad (p<0.01). Fat pad shEGFR-MDA-231 tumors produced in nude mice had increased necrotic areas and decreased CD31-positive vasculature. shEGFR-MDA-231 cells also produced decreased levels of the proangiogenic molecules macrophage colony stimulating factor-1 (MCSF-1) and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9), both of which were decreased by EGFR inhibitors in a panel of EGFR-positive breast cancer cells. Thus, inhibiting autocrine EGFR signaling in breast cancer cells may provide a means for reducing paracrine factor production that facilitates microenvironment support in the bone and mammary gland

Host Cell Invasion and Virulence Mediated by Candida albicans Ssa1

Candida albicans Ssa1 and Ssa2 are members of the HSP70 family of heat shock proteins that are expressed on the cell surface and function as receptors for antimicrobial peptides such as histatins. We investigated the role of Ssa1 and Ssa2 in mediating pathogenic host cell interactions and virulence. A C. albicans ssa1Δ/Δ mutant had attenuated virulence in murine models of disseminated and oropharyngeal candidiasis, whereas an ssa2Δ/Δ mutant did not. In vitro studies revealed that the ssa1Δ/Δ mutant caused markedly less damage to endothelial cells and oral epithelial cell lines. Also, the ssa1Δ/Δ mutant had defective binding to endothelial cell N-cadherin and epithelial cell E-cadherin, receptors that mediate host cell endocytosis of C. albicans. As a result, this mutant had impaired capacity to induce its own endocytosis by endothelial cells and oral epithelial cells. Latex beads coated with recombinant Ssa1 were avidly endocytosed by both endothelial cells and oral epithelial cells, demonstrating that Ssa1 is sufficient to induce host cell endocytosis. These results indicate that Ssa1 is a novel invasin that binds to host cell cadherins, induces host cell endocytosis, and is critical for C. albicans to cause maximal damage to host cells and induce disseminated and oropharyngeal disease

Temporal Information Processing in Short- and Long-Term Memory of Patients with Schizophrenia

Cognitive deficits of patients with schizophrenia have been largely recognized as core symptoms of the disorder. One neglected factor that contributes to these deficits is the comprehension of time. In the present study, we assessed temporal information processing and manipulation from short- and long-term memory in 34 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 34 matched healthy controls. On the short-term memory temporal-order reconstruction task, an incidental or intentional learning strategy was deployed. Patients showed worse overall performance than healthy controls. The intentional learning strategy led to dissociable performance improvement in both groups. Whereas healthy controls improved on a performance measure (serial organization), patients improved on an error measure (inappropriate semantic clustering) when using the intentional instead of the incidental learning strategy. On the long-term memory script-generation task, routine and non-routine events of everyday activities (e.g., buying groceries) had to be generated in either chronological or inverted temporal order. Patients were slower than controls at generating events in the chronological routine condition only. They also committed more sequencing and boundary errors in the inverted conditions. The number of irrelevant events was higher in patients in the chronological, non-routine condition. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia imprecisely access temporal information from short- and long-term memory. In short-term memory, processing of temporal information led to a reduction in errors rather than, as was the case in healthy controls, to an improvement in temporal-order recall. When accessing temporal information from long-term memory, patients were slower and committed more sequencing, boundary, and intrusion errors. Together, these results suggest that time information can be accessed and processed only imprecisely by patients who provide evidence for impaired time comprehension. This could contribute to symptomatic cognitive deficits and strategic inefficiency in schizophrenia

Evaluating the Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Mutation D614G on Transmissibility and Pathogenicity.

Global dispersal and increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variant D614G are suggestive of a selective advantage but may also be due to a random founder effect. We investigate the hypothesis for positive selection of spike D614G in the United Kingdom using more than 25,000 whole genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Despite the availability of a large dataset, well represented by both spike 614 variants, not all approaches showed a conclusive signal of positive selection. Population genetic analysis indicates that 614G increases in frequency relative to 614D in a manner consistent with a selective advantage. We do not find any indication that patients infected with the spike 614G variant have higher COVID-19 mortality or clinical severity, but 614G is associated with higher viral load and younger age of patients. Significant differences in growth and size of 614G phylogenetic clusters indicate a need for continued study of this variant