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Browsing by Author "Huang, Wei"
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Item Cardiovascular-specific mortality and risk factors in colorectal Cancer patients: A cohort study based on registry data of over 500,000 individuals in the US(Elsevier, 2024-02) Zhang, Taolan; Zhu, Hongxia; Hu, Hongjuan; Hu, Haihong; Zhan, Wendi; Jiang, Lingxiang; Tang, Ming; Escobar, David; Huang, Wei; Feng, Yaoguang; Zhou, Junlin; Zou, Mingxiang; Radiation Oncology, School of MedicineBackground Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and recent studies have found that CRC patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study aimed to investigate competing causes of death and prognostic factors among a large cohort of CRC patients and to describe cardiovascular-specific mortality in relation to the US standard population. Methods This registry-based cohort study identified patients diagnosed with CRC between 1973 and 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database in the US. Cumulative mortality functions, conditional standardized mortality ratios, and cause-specific hazard ratios were calculated. Results Of the 563,298 eligible CRC patients included in this study, 407,545 died during the follow-up period. CRC was the leading cause of death, accounting for 49.8% of all possible competing causes of death. CVD was the most common non-cancer cause of death, accounting for 17.8% of total mortality. This study found that CRC patients have a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular-specific mortality compared to the US standard population, with the risk increasing with age and extended survival time. Conclusion This study highlights the need to develop multidisciplinary prevention and management strategies for CRC and CVD to improve CRC patients' survival and quality of life.Item Clinicopathological and Prognostic Characteristics in Dedifferentiated/Poorly Differentiated Chordomas: A Pooled Analysis of Individual Patient Data From 58 Studies and Comparison With Conventional Chordomas(Frontiers Media, 2021-08-13) Liu, Fu-Sheng; Zheng, Bo-Wen; Zhang, Tao-Lan; Li, Jing; Lv, Guo-Hua; Yan, Yi-Guo; Huang, Wei; Zou, Ming-Xiang; Radiation Oncology, School of MedicineBackground: Currently, the clinicopathological and prognostic characteristics of dedifferentiated chordoma (DC) and poorly differentiated chordoma (PDC) remain poorly understood. In this study, we sought to characterize clinicopathological parameters in a large PDC/DC cohort and determine their correlations with progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients. We also attempted to compare clinical features between PDC/DC and conventional chordoma (CC). Methods: Literature searches (from inception to June 01, 2020) using Medline, Embase, Google Scholar and Wanfang databases were conducted to identify eligible studies according to predefined criteria. The local database at our center was also retrospectively reviewed to include CC patients for comparative analysis. Results: Fifty-eight studies from the literature and 90 CC patients from our local institute were identified; in total, 54 PDC patients and 96 DC patients were analyzed. Overall, PDC or DC had distinct characteristics from CC, while PDC and DC shared similar clinical features. Adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy were associated with both PFS and OS in PDC patients in the univariate and/or multivariate analyses. In the DC cohort, tumor resection type, adjuvant chemotherapy and tumor dedifferentiation components significantly affected PFS, whereas none of them were predictive of outcome in the multivariate analysis. By analyzing OS, we found that surgery, resection type and the time to dedifferentiation predicted the survival of DC patients; however, only surgery remained significant after adjusting for other covariables. Conclusions: These data may offer useful information to better understand the clinical characteristics of PDC/DC and may be helpful in improving the outcome prediction of patients.Item Clinicopathological and Prognostic Characteristics in Spinal Chondroblastomas: A Pooled Analysis of Individual Patient Data From a Single Institute and 27 Studies(Sage, 2023) Zheng, Bo-Wen; Huang, Wei; Liu, Fu-Sheng; Zhang, Tao-Lan; Wang, Xiao-Bin; Li, Jing; Lv, Guo-Hua; Yan, Yi-Guo; Zou, Ming-Xiang; Radiation Oncology, School of MedicineStudy design: Retrospective pooled analysis of individual patient data. Objectives: Spinal chondroblastoma (CB) is a very rare pathology and its clinicopathological and prognostic features remain unclear. Here, we sought to characterize the clinicopathological data of a large spinal CB cohort and determine factors affecting the local recurrence-free survival (LRFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients. Methods: Electronic searches using Medline, Embase, Google Scholar and Wanfang databases were performed to identify eligible studies per predefined criteria. A retrospective review was also conducted to include additional patients at our center. Results: Twenty-seven studies from the literature and 8 patients from our local institute were identified, yielding a total of 61 patients for analysis. Overall, there were no differences in clinicopathological characteristics between the local and literature cohorts, except for absence or presence of spinal canal invasion by tumor on imagings and chicken-wire calcification in tumor tissues. Univariate Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that previous treatment, preoperative or postoperative neurological deficits, type of tumor resection, secondary aneurysmal bone cyst (ABC), chicken-wire calcification and radiotherapy correlated closely with LRFS, though only type of tumor resection, chicken-wire calcification and radiotherapy were predictive of outcome based on multivariate Cox analysis. Analyzing OS, we found that a history of preoperative treatment, concurrent ABC, chicken-wire calcification, type of tumor resection and adjuvant radiotherapy had a significant association with survival, whereas only type of tumor resection remained statistically significant after adjusting for other covariables. Conclusion: These data may be helpful in prognostic risk stratification and individualized therapy decision making for patients.Item Computational Image Analysis Identifies Histopathological Image Features Associated With Somatic Mutations and Patient Survival in Gastric Adenocarcinoma(Frontiers Media, 2021-03-31) Cheng, Jun; Liu, Yuting; Huang, Wei; Hong, Wenhui; Wang, Lingling; Zhan, Xiaohui; Han, Zhi; Ni, Dong; Huang, Kun; Zhang, Jie; Medicine, School of MedicineComputational analysis of histopathological images can identify sub-visual objective image features that may not be visually distinguishable by human eyes, and hence provides better modeling of disease phenotypes. This study aims to investigate whether specific image features are associated with somatic mutations and patient survival in gastric adenocarcinoma (sample size = 310). An automated image analysis pipeline was developed to extract quantitative morphological features from H&E stained whole-slide images. We found that four frequently somatically mutated genes (TP53, ARID1A, OBSCN, and PIK3CA) were significantly associated with tumor morphological changes. A prognostic model built on the image features significantly stratified patients into low-risk and high-risk groups (log-rank test p-value = 2.6e-4). Multivariable Cox regression showed the model predicted risk index was an additional prognostic factor besides tumor grade and stage. Gene ontology enrichment analysis showed that the genes whose expressions mostly correlated with the contributing features in the prognostic model were enriched on biological processes such as cell cycle and muscle contraction. These results demonstrate that histopathological image features can reflect underlying somatic mutations and identify high-risk patients that may benefit from more precise treatment regimens. Both the image features and pipeline are highly interpretable to enable translational applications.Item Differentiation between immune checkpoint inhibitor‐related and radiation pneumonitis in lung cancer by CT radiomics and machine learning(Wiley, 2022) Cheng, Jun; Pan, Yi; Huang, Wei; Huang, Kun; Cui, Yanhai; Cui, Yanhai; Hong, Wenhui; Wang, Lingling; Ni, Dong; Tan, Peixin; Biostatistics, School of Public HealthPurpose Consolidation immunotherapy after completion of chemoradiotherapy has become the standard of care for unresectable locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer and can induce potentially severe and life-threatening adverse events, including both immune checkpoint inhibitor-related pneumonitis (CIP) and radiation pneumonitis (RP), which are very challenging for radiologists to diagnose. Differentiating between CIP and RP has significant implications for clinical management such as the treatments to pneumonitis and the decision to continue or restart immunotherapy. The purpose of this study is to differentiate between CIP and RP by a CT radiomics approach. Methods We retrospectively collected the CT images and clinical information of patients with pneumonitis who received immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) only (n = 28), radiotherapy (RT) only (n = 31), and ICI+RT (n = 14). Three kinds of radiomic features (intensity histogram, gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) based, and bag-of-words features) were extracted from CT images, which characterize tissue texture at different scales. Classification models, including logistic regression, random forest, and linear SVM, were first developed and tested in patients who received ICI or RT only with 10-fold cross validation and further tested in patients who received ICI+RT using clinicians’ diagnosis as a reference. Results Using 10-fold cross validation, the classification models built on the intensity histogram features, GLCM based features, and bag-of-words features achieved an area under curve (AUC) of 0.765, 0.848, and 0.937, respectively. The best model was then applied to the patients receiving combination treatment, achieving an AUC of 0.896. Conclusions This study demonstrates the promising potential of radiomic analysis of CT images for differentiating between CIP and RP in lung cancer, which could be a useful tool to attribute the cause of pneumonitis in patients who receive both ICI and RT.Item Doxorubicin exposure causes subacute cardiac atrophy dependent upon the striated muscle-specific ubiquitin ligase Muscle Ring Finger-1(American Heart Association, 2019-03) Willis, Monte S.; Parry, Traci L.; Brown, David I.; Mota, Roberto I.; Huang, Wei; Beak, Ju Youn; Sola, Michael; Zhou, Cynthia; Hicks, Sean T.; Caughey, Melissa C.; D’agostino, Ralph B., Jr.; Jordan, Jennifer; Hundley, W. Gregory; Jensen, Brian C.; Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of MedicineBackground Anthracycline chemotherapeutics, such as doxorubicin, are used widely in the treatment of numerous malignancies. The primary dose-limiting adverse effect of anthracyclines is cardiotoxicity that often presents as heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy years after anthracycline exposure. Recent data from animal studies indicate that anthracyclines cause cardiac atrophy. The timing of onset and underlying mechanisms are not well defined, and the relevance of these findings to human disease is unclear. Methods and Results Wild-type mice were sacrificed 1 week after intraperitoneal administration of doxorubicin (1-25 mg/kg), revealing a dose-dependent decrease in cardiac mass ( R2=0.64; P<0.0001) and a significant decrease in cardiomyocyte cross-sectional area (336±29 versus 188±14 µm2; P<0.0001). Myocardial tissue analysis identified a dose-dependent upregulation of the ubiquitin ligase, MuRF1 (muscle ring finger-1; R2=0.91; P=0.003) and a molecular profile of muscle atrophy. To investigate the determinants of doxorubicin-induced cardiac atrophy, we administered doxorubicin 20 mg/kg to mice lacking MuRF1 (MuRF1-/-) and wild-type littermates. MuRF1-/- mice were protected from cardiac atrophy and exhibited no reduction in contractile function. To explore the clinical relevance of these findings, we analyzed cardiac magnetic resonance imaging data from 70 patients in the DETECT-1 cohort and found that anthracycline exposure was associated with decreased cardiac mass evident within 1 month and persisting to 6 months after initiation. Conclusions Doxorubicin causes a subacute decrease in cardiac mass in both mice and humans. In mice, doxorubicin-induced cardiac atrophy is dependent on MuRF1. These findings suggest that therapies directed at preventing or reversing cardiac atrophy might preserve the cardiac function of cancer patients receiving anthracyclines.Item Drugging the “Undruggable” DNA-binding Domain of STAT3 for Inhibition of Cancer Cell Migration and Invasion(Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, 2013-04-05) Huang, Wei; Liu, Jing-Yuan; Dong, Zi-Zheng; Wang, Fang; He, Yan-Tao; Hangoc, Giao; Fu, Xin-Yuan; Broxmeyer, Hal; Zhang, Zhong-Yin; Zhang, Jian-TingSignal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is constitutively activated in malignant tumors, and its activation is associated with high histological grade and advanced cancer stage. STAT3 has been shown to play important roles in multiple aspects of cancer aggressiveness including migration, invasion, survival, self-renewal, angiogenesis, and tumor cell immune evasion by regulating the expression of multiple downstream target genes. Thus, inhibiting STAT3 promises an attracting strategy for treatment of advanced tumors with metastatic potential. Previously, we identified a STAT3 inhibitor, inS3-54, by targeting the “undruggable” DNA-binding site of STAT3 using an improved in-silico screening approach. To further develop this inhibitor, we identified 79 analogues of inS3-54 for the structure-activity relationship analysis. Further study of five effective analogues shows that four analogues (#1, 18, 26, and 69) inhibit STAT3-dependent colony formation of hematopoietic progenitor cells, indicating a higher selectivity for STAT3 than their parental compound, inS3-54 and another analogue #74. These compounds also (1) inhibit STAT3-specific DNA binding activity; (2) suppress proliferation of cancer cells that have constitutively activated STAT3; and (3) inhibit migration and invasion of cancer cells. In addition, analogue #26-conjugated Sepharose beads could also pull down STAT3, revealing a possible direct binding between STAT3 and the inhibitor. Taken together, we conclude that it is possible to inhibit STAT3 by targeting its DNA-binding domain for discovery of anticancer therapeutics and for treatment of metastatic cancers.Item Prognostic Significance of Tumor-Associated Macrophages in Chondroblastoma and Their Association with Response to Adjuvant Radiotherapy(Dovepress, 2021-05-17) Zheng, Bo-Wen; Yang, Min-Liang; Huang, Wei; Zheng, Bo-Yv; Zhang, Tao-Lan; Li, Jing; Lv, Guo-Hua; Yan, Yi-Guo; Zou, Ming-Xiang; Radiation Oncology, School of MedicineObjective: Chondroblastoma (CB) is a rare and locally growing cartilage-derived tumor. Currently, clinical implications of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in CB remain unclear. In this study, we sought to analyze the relationship between TAM parameters (including densities of CD68+ and CD163+ cells as well as the CD163+/CD68+ ratio) and clinicopathological characteristics and survival of patients. Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to assess TAM subtypes for CD68 and CD163, as well as the expression levels of p53, CD34, and Ki-67 on tumor cells in 132 tissue specimens retrieved between July 2002 and April 2020. Then, TAM parameters were retrospectively analyzed for their associations with patient outcomes (local recurrence-free survival [LRFS] and overall survival [OS]) and clinicopathological features. Results: TAM densities were significantly higher in axial chondroblastoma tissue than in extra-axial chondroblastoma tissue. Moreover, the number of CD163+ TAMs was positively correlated with tumor invasion of surrounding tissues and high expression of CD34 and Ki-67 on tumor cells, whereas CD163+ cell density and the CD163/CD68 ratio were negatively associated with patient response to adjuvant radiotherapy. Univariate Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that the number of CD68+ and CD163+ lymphocytes was significantly associated with both LRFS and OS. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that CD163+ and CD68+ cell levels were independent prognostic factors of LRFS, while TAM data independently predicted OS. More importantly, in subgroup analysis based on three significant factors in univariate survival analysis (including tumor location, adjuvant radiotherapy, and surrounding tissue invasion by tumors), the TAM parameters still displayed good prognostic performance. Conclusion: These data suggest that TAM may significantly affect the biological behavior of CB. We hypothesize that modulating the TAM level or polarization status in the microenvironment may be an effective approach for CB treatment.Item PTEN-Dependent Stabilization of MTSS1 Inhibits Metastatic Phenotype in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma(Elsevier, 2017-11-23) Zeleniak, Ann E.; Huang, Wei; Fishel, Melissa L.; Hill, Reginald; Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of MedicinePancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) presents at metastatic stage in over 50% of patients. With a survival rate of just 2.7% for patients presenting with distant disease, it is imperative to uncover novel mechanisms capable of suppressing metastasis in PDAC. Previously, we reported that the loss of metastasis suppressor protein 1 (MTSS1) in PDAC cells results in significant increase in cellular migration and invasion. Conversely, we also found that overexpressing MTSS1 in metastatic PDAC cell lines corresponds with not only decreased metastatic phenotype, but also greater overall survival. While it is known that MTSS1 is downregulated in late-stage PDAC, the mechanism behind that loss has not yet been elucidated. Here, we build off our previous findings to present a novel regulatory mechanism for the stabilization of MTSS1 via the tumor suppressor protein phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN). We show that PTEN loss in PDAC cells results in a decrease in MTSS1 expression and increased metastatic potential. Additionally, we demonstrate that PTEN forms a complex with MTSS1 in order to stabilize and protect it from proteasomal degradation. Finally, we show that the inflammatory tumor microenvironment, which makes up over 90% of PDAC tumor bulk, is capable of downregulating PTEN expression through secretion of miRNA-23b, potentially uncovering a novel extrinsic mechanism of MTSS1 regulation. Collectively, these data offer new insight into the role and regulation of MTSS1in suppressing tumor cell invasion and migration and help shed light as to what molecular mechanisms could be leading to early cell dissemination in PDAC.Item A Small Molecule Compound Targeting STAT3 DNA-Binding Domain Inhibits Cancer Cell Proliferation, Migration, and Invasion(American Chemical Society, 2014-05-16) Huang, Wei; Dong, Zizheng; Wang, Fang; Peng, Hui; Liu, Jing-Yuan; Zhang, Jian-Ting; Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, IU School of MedicineSignal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) plays important roles in multiple aspects of cancer aggressiveness including migration, invasion, survival, self-renewal, angiogenesis, and tumor cell immune evasion by regulating the expression of multiple downstream target genes. STAT3 is constitutively activated in many malignant tumors and its activation is associated with high histological grade and advanced cancer stages. Thus, inhibiting STAT3 promises an attracting strategy for treatment of advanced and metastatic cancers. Herein, we identified a STAT3 inhibitor, inS3-54, by targeting the DNA-binding domain of STAT3 using an improved virtual screening strategy. InS3-54 preferentially suppresses proliferation of cancer over non-cancer cells and inhibits migration and invasion of malignant cells. Biochemical analyses show that inS3-54 selectively inhibits STAT3 binding to DNA without affecting the activation and dimerization of STAT3. Furthermore, inS3-54 inhibits expression of STAT3 downstream target genes and STAT3 binding to chromatin in situ. Thus, inS3-54 represents a novel probe for development of specific inhibitors targeting the DNA-binding domain of STAT3 and a potential therapeutic for cancer treatments.