Our results indicate that HPV infection may play a limited role in ovarian carcinogenesis.

The gene for Pregnancy Up-regulated Non-ubiquitous Calmodulin Kinase (Pnck), a novel calmodulin kinase, is expressed in roughly one-third of human breast tumors, but not in adjoining normal tissues. Pnck alters EGFR stability and function, prompting this study to determine if Pnck expression has implications for HER-2 function and HER-2-directed therapy. The frequency of Pnck expression in HER-2-amplified breast cancer was examined by immunohistochemistry, and the impact of Pnck expression in the presence of HER-2 amplification on cancer cell proliferation, clonogenicity, cell-cycle progression, and Trastuzumab sensitivity was examined in vitro by transfection of cells with Pnck. Cell signaling was probed by Western blot analysis and shRNA-mediated PTEN knockdown. Over 30 % of HER-2 amplified tumors were found to express Pnck. Expression of Pnck in SkBr3 cells resulted in increased proliferation, clonal growth, cell-cycle progression, and Trastuzumab resistance. Pnck expression increases Hsp27 expression, Trastuzumab partial agonist activity on HER-2 Y1248 phosphorylation, and suppressed extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) activity. Knockdown of endogenous PTEN upregulated ERK1/2 activity, inhibited cellular proliferation, and partially sensitized Pnck/SKBr3 cells to Trastuzumab treatment. Increased proliferation of the Pnck/SKBr3 cells was observed following expression of protein phosphatase active and lipid phosphatase dead PTEN mutant but not the total phosphatase dead PTEN mutant. Co-overexpression of HER-2 and Pnck results in enhanced tumor cell proliferation and Trastuzumab resistance that is paradoxically dependent on PTEN protein phosphatase activity. This suggests that Pnck may be a marker of Trastuzumab resistance and possibly a therapeutic target.

BackgroundRadiation therapy is an indispensable part of various treatment modalities for breast cancer. Specifically, for non-inflammatory locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) patients, preoperative radiotherapy (pRT) is currently indicated as a second line therapy in the event of lack of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Still approximately one third of patients fails to respond favourably to pRT. The aim of this study was to explore molecular mechanisms underlying differential response to radiotherapy (RT) to identify predictive biomarkers and potential targets for increasing radiosensitivity.MethodsThe study was based on a cohort of 134 LABC patients, treated at the Institute of Oncology and Radiology of Serbia (IORS) with pRT, without previous or concomitant systemic therapy. Baseline transcriptional profiles were established using Agilent 60 K microarray platform in a subset of 23 formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) LABC tumour samples of which 11 radiotherapy naïve and 3 post-radiotherapy samples passed quality control and were used for downstream analysis. Biological networks and signalling pathways underlying differential response to RT were identified using Ingenuity Pathways Analysis software. Predictive value of candidate genes in the preoperative setting was further validated by qRT-PCR in an independent subset of 60 LABC samples of which 42 had sufficient quality for data analysis, and in postoperative setting using microarray data from 344 node-negative breast cancer patients (Erasmus cohort, GSE2034 and GSE5327) treated either with surgery only (20%) or surgery with RT (80%).ResultsWe identified 192 significantly differentially expressed genes (FDR < 0.10) between pRT-responsive and non-responsive tumours, related to regulation of cellular development, growth and proliferation, cell cycle control of chromosomal replication, glucose metabolism and NAD biosynthesis II route. APOA1, MAP3K4, and MMP14 genes were differentially expressed (FDR < 0.20) between pRT responders and non-responders in preoperative setting, while MAP3K4 was further validated as RT-specific predictive biomarker of distant metastasis free survival (HR = 2.54, [95%CI:1.42–4.55], p = 0.002) in the postoperative setting.ConclusionsThis study pinpoints MAP3K4 as a putative biomarker of response to RT in both preoperative and postoperative settings and a potential target for radiosensitising combination therapy, warranting further pre-clinical studies and prospective clinical validation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13014-018-1129-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The results suggest that the RAD51 G135C and XRCC1 Arg399Gln polymorphisms could be biomarkers of susceptibility for ovarian carcinoma development. Further larger case-control study is needed to confirm our findings.

Breast cancer is a complex disease with both genetic and environmental factors involved in its etiology. An important role of polymorphisms in genes involved in DNA repair has been reported related to breast cancer risk. We conducted a case-control study in order to investigate the association of RAD51 135G>C and TP53 Arg72Pro polymorphisms with breast cancer in Serbian women.48 BRCA negative women with breast cancer and family history of breast/ovarian cancer (hereditary group), 107 women with breast cancer but without family history of the disease (sporadic group) and 114 healthy women without a history of the disease (control group) were included. Restriction fragment length polymorphism was used for genotyping. Genotype and allelic frequencies, the odds ratio (OR) and the 95 % confidence interval (CI) were calculated as an estimate of relative risk. The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was tested using χ(2) test. Significance was considered for p < 0.05. RAD51 135G>C showed statistically significant association of CC genotype and increased breast cancer risk (OR 10.28, 95 % CI 1.12-94.5) in hereditary group of patients compared to the control group. Regarding the TP53 Arg72Pro, we showed statistical significance for ProPro + ProArg comparing to ArgArg (OR 2.34, 95 %, CI 1.17-4.70) in hereditary compared to sporadic group. RAD51 135G>C contributes to hereditary breast cancer in Serbian population, with CC genotype as a risk factor. We also found that carriers of Pro allele of TP53 codon 72 is related to hereditary cancer comparing to sporadic one, which indicates it as a potential risk factor for hereditary form of disease.

The synthesis and chemical characterization of the novel 2,6-diacetylpyridine-bis(selenosemicarbazone) metal complexes of Zn(II), Cd(II) and Ni(II) were published previously. Here we report first evidence on anti-proliferative activity of the complexes and molecular patterns that underlie it. The complexes and the corresponding ligand are shown to be cytotoxic on the panel of nine, malignant and non-malignant cell lines, with the exception of Ni(II) complex that did not achieve IC50 value on any of the cell lines tested. Further experiments on the selected cell lines including A 549, MRC-5, EA.hy 926 and HeLa, have shown that the complexes posses unambiguous property of inducing necrosis in the cells treated for 6 hours, with the ligand and Zn(II) complex being the most active on all cell lines. On the contrary, only small portion of early apoptotic events was detected, under the same experimental condition. This was in complete concordance with the results obtained from Western blot analysis of the treated cells that showed no or slight increase of the protein amounts of two crucial apoptotic mediators: Cytochrome C and Caspase III. We propose the model, under which tested complexes induce necroptosis in treated cells, a recently described type of cell death with necrotic morphological features and acting via caspase independent pathway, and without elevated amounts of intracellular ROS. Endothelial EA.hy 926 cells have proven to be extremely sensitive on the necrosis-inducing effect of the complexes, which could indicate potential anti-angiogenic effect of the novel complexes that is to be investigated.

It seems that the lack of positive progesterone receptors in metastasis (0/8) and conversion from PR+ primary to PR- metastasis (5/8) may be important in describing the non-responder phenotype. We obtained a similar progression-free interval in patients with progesterone receptor-positive/negative primary tumors, but a longer progression-free interval in the patients with progesterone receptor-positive metastases ( n=9) than with negative ones ( n=14), indicating the possibility of using steroid receptor content from metastases for metastatic disease therapy planning.

AimTP53 and DNA repair polymorphisms have been proposed as cancer risk factors. This study evaluated the usability of TP53 Arg72Pro single-nucleotide polymorphism, XRCC1 Arg399Gln and RAD51 G135C as a low-cost lung adenocarcinoma screening tool.Patients and methodsThis case–control study included 78 atients with lung adenocarcinoma and 79 healthy matched controls. TP53, XRCC1 and RAD51 genotyping was done by PCR followed by restriction length polymorphism. Descriptive analyses included genotype and allelic frequencies and deviations of the frequencies from those expected under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium were assessed using the χ2 test. The OR and 95% CIs were calculated as an estimate of relative risk, with significance set at p value <0.05.ResultsThe TP53 codon 72 Pro allele and the XRCC1 codon 399 Arg allele in a homozygous state were associated with lung adenocarcinoma (p=0.037; OR (95% CI) 2.42 (1.10 to 5.31)), that is, p=0.037; OR (95% CI) 2.16 (1.08 to 4.33), respectively. Also, carriers of the TP53 codon 72 Pro allele and the XRCC1 codon 399 ArgArg genotype older than 50 showed an even higher risk of developing lung adenocarcinoma (p=0.03 in both cases).ConclusionsThe TP53 codon 72 Arg allele and XRCC1 codon 399 Gln allele are likely to have a protective effect against lung adenocarcinoma, especially in individuals older than 50 years of age. XRCC1 and TP53 genotyping might be a useful low-cost tool for evaluating individual lung cancer risk, leading to earlier detection and management of this disease.