分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 肿瘤学 提交时间: 2016-05-11
摘要: Hereditary multiple exostosis (HME) is an autosomal inherited skeletal disease whose etiology is not fully understood. To further understand the genetic spectrum of the disease, we analyzed a five-generation Chinese family with HME that have observable inheritance. Exome sequencing was performed on three HME individuals and three unaffected individuals from the family. A downstream study confirmed a new C deletion at codon 442 on exon 5 of the exostosin-1 (EXT1) gene as the only pathogenic site which generated a stop codon and caused the truncation of the protein. We rediscovered the deletion in other affected individuals but not in the unaffected individuals from the family. Upon immunohistochemistry assay, we found that the EXT1 protein level of the patients with the novel mutation in our study was less than the level in the patients without the EXT1 mutation from another unrelated family. For a deeper understanding, we analyzed the mutation spectrum of the EXT1 gene. The present study should facilitate a further understanding of HME.
分类: 生物学 >> 生物物理学 >> 肿瘤学 提交时间: 2016-05-11
摘要: Bladder cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide. Bladder cancer stem cells (BCSCs) have been isolated recently but have not been defined yet. Here we sorted BCSCs from bladder tumor tissues or normal bladder stem cells (NBBCs) from adjacent normal bladder tissues. We found that the C228T mutation (chr5, 1, 295, 228 C > T) of TERT promoter frequently occurs in BCSCs, but not exist in NBBCs. Importantly, introducing the C228T mutation in NBBCs causes TERT overexpression and transformation of bladder cancer. Restoration of the C228T mutation to T228C in BCSCs can recover the TERT expression to a basal level and abolish tumor formation. Additionally, the C228T mutation of TERT promoter triggers TERT expression leading to increased telomerase activity. TERT expression levels are consistent with clinical severity and prognosis of bladder cancer.