Back

UBE2C promotes leptomeningeal dissemination and is a therapeutic target in brain metastatic disease

Paisana, E.; Cascao, R.; Custodia, C.; Qin, N.; Picard, D.; Pauck, D.; Carvalho, T.; Ruivo, P.; Barreto, C.; Doutel, D.; Cabecadas, J.; Roque, R.; Pimentel, J.; Miguens, J.; Barata, J. T.; Faria, C. C.

2022-10-06 cancer biology
10.1101/2022.10.04.510674 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Despite current improvements in systemic cancer treatment, brain metastases (BM) remain incurable, and there is an unmet clinical need for effective targeted therapies. Here, we sought common molecular events in brain metastatic disease. RNA sequencing of thirty human BM identified the upregulation of UBE2C, a gene that ensures the correct transition from metaphase to anaphase, across different primary tumor origins. Tissue microarray analysis of an independent BM patient cohort revealed that high expression of UBE2C was associated with decreased survival. UBE2C-driven orthotopic mouse models developed extensive leptomeningeal dissemination, likely due to increased migration and invasion. Early cancer treatment with dactolisib (dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor) prevented the development of UBE2C-induced leptomeningeal metastases. Our findings reveal UBE2C as a key player in the development of metastatic brain disease and highlight PI3K/mTOR inhibition as a promising anticancer therapy to prevent late-stage metastatic brain cancer.

Matching journals

The top 12 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.