Browsing by Author "Ghamlouch, Hussein"

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    Insights into high-risk multiple myeloma from an analysis of the role of PHF19 in cancer
    (Springer Nature, 2021-12-02) Ghamlouch, Hussein; Boyle, Eileen M.; Blaney, Patrick; Wang, Yubao; Choi, Jinyoung; Williams, Louis; Bauer, Michael; Auclair, Daniel; Bruno, Benedetto; Walker, Brian A.; Davies, Faith E.; Morgan, Gareth J.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Despite improvements in outcome, 15-25% of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM) patients have treatment resistant high-risk (HR) disease with a poor survival. The lack of a genetic basis for HR has focused attention on the role played by epigenetic changes. Aberrant expression and somatic mutations affecting genes involved in the regulation of tri-methylation of the lysine (K) 27 on histone 3 H3 (H3K27me3) are common in cancer. H3K27me3 is catalyzed by EZH2, the catalytic subunit of the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). The deregulation of H3K27me3 has been shown to be involved in oncogenic transformation and tumor progression in a variety of hematological malignancies including MM. Recently we have shown that aberrant overexpression of the PRC2 subunit PHD Finger Protein 19 (PHF19) is the most significant overall contributor to HR status further focusing attention on the role played by epigenetic change in MM. By modulating both the PRC2/EZH2 catalytic activity and recruitment, PHF19 regulates the expression of key genes involved in cell growth and differentiation. Here we review the expression, regulation and function of PHF19 both in normal and the pathological contexts of solid cancers and MM. We present evidence that strongly implicates PHF19 in the regulation of genes important in cell cycle and the genetic stability of MM cells making it highly relevant to HR MM behavior. A detailed understanding of the normal and pathological functions of PHF19 will allow us to design therapeutic strategies able to target aggressive subsets of MM.
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    Plasma cells expression from smouldering myeloma to myeloma reveals the importance of the PRC2 complex, cell cycle progression, and the divergent evolutionary pathways within the different molecular subgroups
    (Springer, 2022-02) Boyle, Eileen M.; Rosenthal, Adam; Ghamlouch, Hussein; Wang, Yan; Farmer, Phillip; Rutherford, Michael; Ashby, Cody; Bauer, Michael; Johnson, Sarah K.; Wardell, Christopher P.; Wang, Yubao; Hoering, Antje; Schinke, Carolina; Thanendrarajan, Sharmilan; Zangari, Maurizio; Barlogie, Bart; Dhodapkar, Madhav V.; Davies, Faith E.; Morgan, Gareth J.; van Rhee, Frits; Walker, Brian A.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Sequencing studies have shed some light on the pathogenesis of progression from smouldering multiple myeloma (SMM) and symptomatic multiple myeloma (MM). Given the scarcity of smouldering samples, little data are available to determine which translational programmes are dysregulated and whether the mechanisms of progression are uniform across the main molecular subgroups. In this work, we investigated 223 SMM and 1348 MM samples from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) for which we had gene expression profiling (GEP). Patients were analysed by TC-7 subgroup for gene expression changes between SMM and MM. Among the commonly dysregulated genes in each subgroup, PHF19 and EZH2 highlight the importance of the PRC2.1 complex. We show that subgroup specific differences exist even at the SMM stage of disease with different biological features driving progression within each TC molecular subgroup. These data suggest that MMSET SMM has already transformed, but that the other precursor diseases are distinct clinical entities from their symptomatic counterpart.