Browsing by Author "Masood, Ashiq"

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    A pan-cancer organoid platform for precision medicine
    (Elsevier, 2021) Larsen, Brian M.; Kannan, Madhavi; Langer, Lee F.; Leibowitz, Benjamin D.; Bentaieb, Aicha; Cancino, Andrea; Dolgalev, Igor; Drummond, Bridgette E.; Dry, Jonathan R.; Ho, Chi-Sing; Khullar, Gaurav; Krantz, Benjamin A.; Mapes, Brandon; McKinnon, Kelly E.; Metti, Jessica; Perera, Jason F.; Rand, Tim A.; Sanchez-Freire, Veronica; Shaxted, Jenna M.; Stein, Michelle M.; Streit, Michael A.; Tan, Yi-Hung Carol; Zhang, Yilin; Zhao, Ende; Venkataraman, Jagadish; Stumpe, Martin C.; Borgia, Jeffrey A.; Masood, Ashiq; Catenacci, Daniel V. T.; Mathews, Jeremy V.; Gursel, Demirkan B.; Wei, Jian-Jun; Welling, Theodore H.; Simeone, Diane M.; White, Kevin P.; Khan, Aly A.; Igartua, Catherine; Salahudeen, Ameen A.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Patient-derived tumor organoids (TOs) are emerging as high-fidelity models to study cancer biology and develop novel precision medicine therapeutics. However, utilizing TOs for systems-biology-based approaches has been limited by a lack of scalable and reproducible methods to develop and profile these models. We describe a robust pan-cancer TO platform with chemically defined media optimized on cultures acquired from over 1,000 patients. Crucially, we demonstrate tumor genetic and transcriptomic concordance utilizing this approach and further optimize defined minimal media for organoid initiation and propagation. Additionally, we demonstrate a neural-network-based high-throughput approach for label-free, light-microscopy-based drug assays capable of predicting patient-specific heterogeneity in drug responses with applicability across solid cancers. The pan-cancer platform, molecular data, and neural-network-based drug assay serve as resources to accelerate the broad implementation of organoid models in precision medicine research and personalized therapeutic profiling programs.
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    Clinicogenomic Landscape of Metastatic Thymic Epithelial Tumors
    (American Society of Clinical Oncology, 2023) Ardeshir-Larijani, Fatemeh; Schneider, Bryan P.; Althouse, Sandra K.; Radovich, Milan; Masood, Ashiq; Perna, Fabiana; Salman, Huda; Loehrer, Patrick J.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background: Despite favorable clinical outcomes, a subset of patients with thymic epithelial tumors (TETs) develop metastasis. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) provides genomic data on primary TETs (pTETs). This study assessed the molecular alterations and uncovered targetable pathways in metastatic TETs (mTETs). Methods: From 2015 to 2020, 49 patients with stage IV TETs underwent Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments-based sequencing using whole-exome sequencing (n = 33), panel-based testing (n = 12), and/or liquid biopsy (n = 24). Specimens were obtained from a metastatic organ (n = 36) or relapsed primary mediastinal mass (n = 10), whereas four patients underwent a liquid biopsy only. Data on pTETs were derived from the TCGA. Results: Compared with the pTET data set, patients with mTETs were younger (54 years v 60.5 years, P = .009) and had more aggressive histologies, with the most common tumor type being thymic carcinoma (n = 22, 40.7%) and B3 thymoma (n = 15, 27.8%). GTF2I was the most altered gene in primary thymomas (48.80%, n = 60). In metastatic thymoma and thymic carcinoma, TP53 was the most common genetic alteration (31% and 36%, respectively). In mTETs, the genomic alteration occurred in the TP53/CDK, EGFR/RAS, and PI3K/mTOR pathways. Biopsies obtained from distant metastasis were more commonly found to contain targetable mutations. There was an overlap of 61% (22 of 36) between tissue and liquid biopsy genomic alterations. Conclusion: Clinically actionable genomic alterations are frequently observed in mTETs, indicating a value of repeat biopsy (preferably from a metastatic site of TETs for sequencing at the time of recurrence (TCGA data).
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    High-dimensional deconstruction of pancreatic cancer identifies tumor microenvironmental and developmental stemness features that predict survival
    (Springer Nature, 2023-10-19) Storrs, Erik P.; Chati, Prathamesh; Usmani, Abul; Sloan, Ian; Krasnick, Bradley A.; Babbra, Ramandeep; Harris, Peter K.; Sachs, Chloe M.; Qaium, Faridi; Chatterjee, Deyali; Wetzel, Chris; Goedegebuure, Peter; Hollander, Thomas; Anthony, Hephzibah; Ponce, Jennifer; Khaliq, Ateeq M.; Badiyan, Shahed; Kim, Hyun; Denardo, David G.; Lang, Gabriel D.; Cosgrove, Natalie D.; Kushnir, Vladimir M.; Early, Dayna S.; Masood, Ashiq; Lim, Kian-Huat; Hawkins, William G.; Ding, Li; Fields, Ryan C.; Das, Koushik K.; Chaudhuri, Aadel A.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Numerous cell states are known to comprise the pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumor microenvironment (TME). However, the developmental stemness and co-occurrence of these cell states remain poorly defined. Here, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on a cohort of treatment-naive PDAC time-of-diagnosis endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy (EUS-FNB) samples (n = 25). We then combined these samples with surgical resection (n = 6) and publicly available samples to increase statistical power (n = 80). Following annotation into 25 distinct cell states, cells were scored for developmental stemness, and a customized version of the Ecotyper tool was used to identify communities of co-occurring cell states in bulk RNA-seq samples (n = 268). We discovered a tumor microenvironmental community comprised of aggressive basal-like malignant cells, tumor-promoting SPP1+ macrophages, and myofibroblastic cancer-associated fibroblasts associated with especially poor prognosis. We also found a developmental stemness continuum with implications for survival that is present in both malignant cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). We further demonstrated that high-dimensional analyses predictive of survival are feasible using standard-of-care, time-of-diagnosis EUS-FNB specimens. In summary, we identified tumor microenvironmental and developmental stemness characteristics from a high-dimensional gene expression analysis of PDAC using human tissue specimens, including time-of-diagnosis EUS-FNB samples. These reveal new connections between tumor microenvironmental composition, CAF and malignant cell stemness, and patient survival that could lead to better upfront risk stratification and more personalized upfront clinical decision-making.
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    Refining colorectal cancer classification and clinical stratification through a single-cell atlas
    (Springer, 2022-05-11) Khaliq, Ateeq M.; Erdogan, Cihat; Kurt, Zeyneb; Turgut, Sultan Sevgi; Grunvald, Miles W.; Rand, Tim; Khare, Sonal; Borgia, Jeffrey A.; Hayden, Dana M.; Pappas, Sam G.; Govekar, Henry R.; Kam, Audrey E.; Reiser, Jochen; Turaga, Kiran; Radovich, Milan; Zang, Yong; Qiu, Yingjie; Liu, Yunlong; Fishel, Melissa L.; Turk, Anita; Gupta, Vineet; Al-Sabti, Ram; Subramanian, Janakiraman; Kuzel, Timothy M.; Sadanandam, Anguraj; Waldron, Levi; Hussain, Arif; Saleem, Mohammad; El-Rayes, Bassel; Salahudeen, Ameen A.; Masood, Ashiq; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) consensus molecular subtypes (CMS) have different immunological, stromal cell, and clinicopathological characteristics. Single-cell characterization of CMS subtype tumor microenvironments is required to elucidate mechanisms of tumor and stroma cell contributions to pathogenesis which may advance subtype-specific therapeutic development. We interrogate racially diverse human CRC samples and analyze multiple independent external cohorts for a total of 487,829 single cells enabling high-resolution depiction of the cellular diversity and heterogeneity within the tumor and microenvironmental cells. Results Tumor cells recapitulate individual CMS subgroups yet exhibit significant intratumoral CMS heterogeneity. Both CMS1 microsatellite instability (MSI-H) CRCs and microsatellite stable (MSS) CRC demonstrate similar pathway activations at the tumor epithelial level. However, CD8+ cytotoxic T cell phenotype infiltration in MSI-H CRCs may explain why these tumors respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Cellular transcriptomic profiles in CRC exist in a tumor immune stromal continuum in contrast to discrete subtypes proposed by studies utilizing bulk transcriptomics. We note a dichotomy in tumor microenvironments across CMS subgroups exists by which patients with high cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and C1Q+TAM content exhibit poor outcomes, providing a higher level of personalization and precision than would distinct subtypes. Additionally, we discover CAF subtypes known to be associated with immunotherapy resistance. Conclusions Distinct CAFs and C1Q+ TAMs are sufficient to explain CMS predictive ability and a simpler signature based on these cellular phenotypes could stratify CRC patient prognosis with greater precision. Therapeutically targeting specific CAF subtypes and C1Q + TAMs may promote immunotherapy responses in CRC patients.
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    Single-Cell Profiling Reveals the Impact of Genetic Alterations on the Differentiation of Inflammation-Induced Murine Colon Tumors
    (MDPI, 2024-05-28) Ghobashi, Ahmed H.; Lanzloth, Rosie; Ladaika, Christopher A.; Masood, Ashiq; O’Hagan, Heather M.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Genetic mutations and chronic inflammation of the colon contribute to the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). Using a murine model of inflammation-induced colon tumorigenesis, we determined how genetic mutations alter colon tumor cell differentiation. Inflammation induced by enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis (ETBF) colonization of multiple intestinal neoplasia (MinApcΔ716/+) mice triggers loss of heterozygosity of Apc causing colon tumor formation. Here, we report that the addition of BRAFV600E mutation (BRAFF-V600ELgr5tm1(Cre/ERT2)CleMinApcΔ716/+, BLM) or knocking out Msh2 (Msh2LoxP/LoxPVil1-creMinApcΔ716/+, MSH2KO) in the Min model altered colon tumor differentiation. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we uncovered the differences between BLM, Min, and MSH2KO tumors at a single-cell resolution. BLM tumors showed an increase in differentiated tumor epithelial cell lineages and a reduction in the tumor stem cell population. Interestingly, the tumor stem cell population of BLM tumors had revival colon stem cell characteristics with low WNT signaling and an increase in RevCSC marker gene expression. In contrast, MSH2KO tumors were characterized by an increased tumor stem cell population that had higher WNT signaling activity compared to Min tumors. Furthermore, overall BLM tumors had higher expression of transcription factors that drive differentiation, such as Cdx2, than Min tumors. Using RNA velocity, we identified additional potential regulators of BLM tumor differentiation such as NDRG1. The role of CDX2 and NDRG1 as putative regulators for BLM tumor cell differentiation was verified using organoids derived from BLM tumors. Our results demonstrate the critical connections between genetic mutations and cell differentiation in inflammation-induced colon tumorigenesis. Understanding such roles will deepen our understanding of inflammation-associated colon cancer.