Breast cancer is the deadliest neoplasm in women globally, resulting in a significant health burden. In many cases, breast cancer becomes resistant to chemotherapy, radiation, and hormonal therapies. It is believed that genetics is not the major cause of breast cancer. Other contributing risk factors include age at first childbirth, age at menarche, age at menopause, use of oral contraceptives, race and ethnicity, and diet. Diet has been shown to influence breast cancer incidence, recurrence, and prognosis. Soy isoflavones have long been a staple in Asian diets, and there appears to be an increase, albeit modest, compared to Asian populations, in soy consumption among Americans. Isoflavones are phytoestrogens that have antiestrogenic as well as estrogenic effects on breast cancer cells in culture, in animal models, and in clinical trials. This study will investigate anticancer and tumor promoting properties of dietary isoflavones and evaluate their effects on breast cancer development. Furthermore, this work seeks to elucidate the putative molecular pathways by which these phytochemicals modulate breast cancer risk by synergizing or antagonizing the estrogen receptor (ER) and in ER-independent signaling mechanisms.

The labial gland of Manduca sexta is a valuable system to study the mechanisms of programmed cell death since the death of the gland is nearly synchronous and, except for the anterior duct, involves all of the tissue. The gland degenerates in 5 days during pupation. Our previous work documents a drop in total protein synthesis as the gland degenerates. To evaluate potential causes of this altered protein synthesis, we monitored several parameters of metabolism in dying cells: levels of adenosine triphosphate to estimate the energy resources of the gland; reduction of 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide to assess mitochondrial respiration; levels of acid phosphatase to assay lysosomal enzyme activity; and concentrations of cyclic nucleotides and inositol triphosphate to monitor signaling. While protein synthesis fell precipitously on day 0, total adenosine triphosphate and mitochondrial respiration were unchanged until the cells underwent massive collapse on day 3. Lysosomal acid phosphatase increased during early metamorphosis, and ultimately the bulk of the cytoplasm was destroyed in autophagic vacuoles. Changes in the concentrations of second messengers were modest and late. The relationships between the metabolism and the collapse of the labial gland are under investigation.

BackgroundClustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) RNA-guided adaptive immune systems are found in prokaryotes to defend cells from foreign DNA. CRISPR Cas9 systems have been modified and employed as genome editing tools in wide ranging organisms. Here, we provide a detailed protocol to truncate genes in mammalian cells using CRISPR Cas9 editing. We describe custom donor vector construction using Gibson assembly with the commonly utilized pcDNA3 vector as the backbone.ResultsWe describe a step-by-step method to truncate genes of interest in mammalian cell lines using custom-made donor vectors. Our method employs 2 guide RNAs, mutant Cas9D10A nickase (Cas9 = CRISPR associated sequence 9), and a custom-made donor vector for homologous recombination to precisely truncate a gene of interest with a selectable neomycin resistance cassette (NPTII: Neomycin Phosphotransferase II). We provide a detailed protocol on how to design and construct a custom donor vector using Gibson assembly (and the commonly utilized pcDNA3 vector as the backbone) allowing researchers to obtain specific gene modifications of interest (gene truncation, gene deletion, epitope tagging or knock-in mutation). Selection of mutants in mammalian cell lines with G418 (Geneticin) combined with several screening methods: western blot analysis, polymerase chain reaction, and Sanger sequencing resulted in streamlined mutant isolation. Proof of principle experiments were done in several mammalian cell lines.ConclusionsHere we describe a detailed protocol to employ CRISPR Cas9 genome editing to truncate genes of interest using the commonly employed expression vector pcDNA3 as the backbone for the donor vector. Providing a detailed protocol for custom donor vector design and construction will enable researchers to develop unique genome editing tools. To date, detailed protocols for CRISPR Cas9 custom donor vector construction are limited (Lee et al. in Sci Rep 5:8572, 2015; Ma et al. in Sci Rep 4:4489, 2014). Custom donor vectors are commercially available, but can be expensive. Our goal is to share this protocol to aid researchers in performing genetic investigations that require custom donor vectors for specialized applications (specific gene truncations, knock-in mutations, and epitope tagging applications).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12867-018-0105-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Chemotherapy remains a primary treatment modality for various malignancies. However, resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs is a major obstacle to curative cancer therapy. Lysosomes are acidic organelles that participate in cellular digestion. However, there is rising interest in lysosomes because of their involvement with cancer. For example, extracellular secretion of lysosomal enzymes promote tumorigenesis; cytosolic leakage of lysosomal hydrolases promote apoptosis; and weak chemotherapeutic bases diffuse across the lysosomal membrane and become entrapped in lysosomes in their cationic state. Lysosomal drug sequestration lowers the cytotoxic potential of chemotherapeutics, reduces drug availability to sites of action, and contributes to cancer resistance. This review examines various mechanisms of lysosomal drug sequestration and their consequences on cancer multidrug resistance. Strategies for overcoming drug resistance by exploiting lysosomes as subcellular targets to reverse drug sequestration and drug resistance are also discussed.

Lysosomes are acidic organelles that are involved in cellular digestion by endocytosis, phagocytosis, and autophagy. They contain more than 50 hydrolases that are capable of degrading all macromolecules. There is accumulating evidence that lysosomal enzymes can provoke apoptotic cell death. This has important implications for cancer, where proapoptotic genes are mutated and antiapoptotic genes are often overexpressed leading to chemoresistance. Lysosomes play a dual role in cancer development depending on their subcellular localization. When they are located extracellularly they can promote invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis. However, when they are located intracellularly they can trigger apoptosis by leaking into the cytosol. In this review, we examine the pathways by which lysosomes can evoke both apoptosis and tumorigenesis. Although cancer cells have defects in their apoptotic machinery, they can still undergo lysosomal cell death. We offer several strategies to explain how targeting lysosomes can serve as a putative model for the development of novel anticancer agents. Furthermore, we propose that lysosomal cell death is an effective treatment against apoptosis-resistant cancer cells and thus holds great potential as a therapeutic strategy for circumventing apoptosis deficiency in tumors.