In a study led by HI-STEM researcher Elisa Espinet, HI-STEM researchers teamed up with an interdisciplinary group of clinicians, bioinformaticians and biomedical researchers to shed more light on the reasons for the heterogenous aggressiveness of different pancreatic tumors.
They were able to define two differently aggressive molecular subtypes of pancreatic carcinoma based on the DNA-methylome of the tumor cells, providing new insights into the origin of the tumors. In the more aggressive group of tumors, a phenomenon known as "viral mimicry" leads to a cancer-promoting inflammatory reaction. This could possibly be the basis for the development of a targeted, subtype-oriented therapy. The results have now been published in the journal Cancer Discovery.
Read more:
- Original Publication: Elisa Espinet, Zuguang Gu, Charles D. Imbusch, Nathalia A. Giese, Magdalena, Büscher, Mariam Safavi, Silke Weisenburger, Corinna Klein, Vanessa Vogel, Mattia Falcone, Jacob Insua-Rodríguez, Manuel Reitberger, Vera Thiel, Steffi O. Kossi, Alexander Muckenhuber, Karnjit Sarai, Alex YL Lee, Elyne Backx, Soheila Zarei, Matthias M. Gaida, Manuel Rodríguez-Paredes, Elisa Donato, Hsi-Yu Yen, Roland Eils, Matthias Schlesner, Nicole Pfarr, Thilo Hackert, Christoph Plass, Benedikt Brors, Katja Steiger, Dieter Weichenhan, H. Efsun Arda, Ilse Rooman, Janel L. Kopp, Oliver Strobel, Wilko Weichert, Martin R. Sprick* and Andreas Trumpp*: Aggressive PDACs show hypomethylation of repetitive elements and the Execution of an intrinsic IFN program linked to a ductal Cell of origin Cancer Discovery 2020, DOI: 1158/2159-8290.CD-20-1202
- DKFZ Press Release (German Version)
- Twitter Thread by Elisa Espinet summarizing the results: https://twitter.com/ElisaEspinet/status/1316781872303820800
- Altmetric Page for the Article: https://www.altmetric.com/details/92452310