Biomedical subjects

Philippe Broët

Publications and source records attributed to Philippe Broët.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2002

Treatment of cancer cells with methioninase produces DNA hypomethylation and increases DNA synthesis.

Methionine depletion in the human cell line CCRF-CEM through the action of recombinant methioninase (rMETase), a methionine-cleaving enzyme, was previously demonstrated to produce a strong cytotoxic synergistic effect with fluorouracil (FUra) throughout a broad range of concentrations of FUra and rMETase, including subcytotoxic levels of rMETase. Potentiation was associated with a decrease in free thymidylate synthase from preexisting levels. To further investigate the action of rMETase on CCRF-CEM cells, in the present study we explored the effects of rMETase as a single agent on DNA methylation levels and DNA synthesis, which may be changed as a result of deprivation of methionine. Cells treated with rMETase under subcytotoxic conditions contained significantly lower levels of genomic methylated DNA than did control cells, as demonstrated by incorporation of the methyl radical of [methyl-(3)H]S-adenosylmethionine in DNA and by use of methylation-sensitive arbitrarily primed PCR. DNA hypomethylation produced by rMETase was of similar magnitude as that produced with the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor 5-azacytidine. Cells exposed to rMETase synthesized significantly more DNA than did untreated cells. Incorporation of [6-3H]thymidine and [6-3H]2'-deoxyuridine in these cells was augmented over that in control by mean factors of 1.78 and 2.36, respectively. Increased 3H nucleoside incorporation resulted in greater numbers of nuclear grains as demonstrated by autoradiography. The increase in DNA synthesis induced by rMETase is likely to result from enhancement of DNA repair because it was not accompanied by differences in cell cycle phase distribution or in total DNA content as determined by flow cytometry. We hypothesize that potentiation of FUra cytotoxicity by rMETase may result from increased inhibition of thymidylate synthase, together with DNA hypomethylation and enhanced DNA repair that could be involved in cell responses to drug-induced damage.

Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic↗

PubMed2002

Pooled analysis of prognostic impact of urokinase-type plasminogen activator and its inhibitor PAI-1 in 8377 breast cancer patients.

BACKGROUND: Urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and its inhibitor (PAI-1) play essential roles in tumor invasion and metastasis. High levels of both uPA and PAI-1 are associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. To confirm the prognostic value of uPA and PAI-1 in primary breast cancer, we reanalyzed individual patient data provided by members of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer-Receptor and Biomarker Group (EORTC-RBG). METHODS: The study included 18 datasets involving 8377 breast cancer patients. During follow-up (median 79 months), 35% of the patients relapsed and 27% died. Levels of uPA and PAI-1 in tumor tissue extracts were determined by different immunoassays; values were ranked within each dataset and divided by the number of patients in that dataset to produce fractional ranks that could be compared directly across datasets. Associations of ranks of uPA and PAI-1 levels with relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed by Cox multivariable regression analysis stratified by dataset, including the following traditional prognostic variables: age, menopausal status, lymph node status, tumor size, histologic grade, and steroid hormone-receptor status. All P values were two-sided. RESULTS: Apart from lymph node status, high levels of uPA and PAI-1 were the strongest predictors of both poor RFS and poor OS in the analyses of all patients. Moreover, in both lymph node-positive and lymph node-negative patients, higher uPA and PAI-1 values were independently associated with poor RFS and poor OS. For (untreated) lymph node-negative patients in particular, uPA and PAI-1 included together showed strong prognostic ability (all P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: This pooled analysis of the EORTC-RBG datasets confirmed the strong and independent prognostic value of uPA and PAI-1 in primary breast cancer. For patients with lymph node-negative breast cancer, uPA and PAI-1 measurements in primary tumors may be especially useful for designing individualized treatment strategies.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Bayesian hierarchical model for identifying changes in gene expression from microarray experiments.

Recent developments in microarrays technology enable researchers to study simultaneously the expression of thousands of genes from one cell line or tissue sample. This new technology is often used to assess changes in mRNA expression upon a specified transfection for a cell line in order to identify target genes. For such experiments, the range of differential expression is moderate, and teasing out the modified genes is challenging and calls for detailed modeling. The aim of this paper is to propose a methodological framework for studies that investigate differential gene expression through microarrays technology that is based on a fully Bayesian mixture approach (Richardson and Green, 1997). A case study that investigated those genes that were differentially expressed in two cell lines (normal and modified by a gene transfection) is provided to illustrate the performance and usefulness of this approach.

Bayes Theorem↗