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Article
Open AccessThe pluripotency factor NANOG contributes to mesenchymal plasticity and is predictive for outcome in esophageal adenocarcinoma
Despite the advent of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT), overall survival rates of esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) remain low. A readily induced mesenchymal transition of EAC cells contributes to resistance ...
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Article
Apoptotic cell death in disease—Current understanding of the NCCD 2023
Apoptosis is a form of regulated cell death (RCD) that involves proteases of the caspase family. Pharmacological and genetic strategies that experimentally inhibit or delay apoptosis in mammalian systems have ...
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Article
Open AccessSubtype-specific kinase dependency regulates growth and metastasis of poor-prognosis mesenchymal colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC) can be divided into four consensus molecular subtypes (CMS), each with distinct biological features. CMS4 is associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition and stromal infiltration (...
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Article
Open AccessMolecular characterization of colorectal cancer related peritoneal metastatic disease
A significant proportion of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients develop peritoneal metastases (PM) in the course of their disease. PMs are associated with a poor quality of life, significant morbidity and dismal ...
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Article
Open AccessSerum-based measurements of stromal activation through ADAM12 associate with poor prognosis in colorectal cancer
Recently it has been recognized that stromal markers could be used as a clinically relevant biomarker for therapy response and prognosis. Here, we report on a serum marker for stromal activation, A Disintegrin...
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Article
Open AccessBCL-XL is crucial for progression through the adenoma-to-carcinoma sequence of colorectal cancer
Evasion of apoptosis is a hallmark of cancer, which is frequently mediated by upregulation of the antiapoptotic BCL-2 family proteins. In colorectal cancer (CRC), previous work has highlighted differential ant...
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Article
Open AccessAdipose stem cell niche reprograms the colorectal cancer stem cell metastatic machinery
Obesity is a strong risk factor for cancer progression, posing obesity-related cancer as one of the leading causes of death. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms that endow cancer cells with metastatic prope...
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Article
Open AccessOncogenic BRAF, unrestrained by TGFβ-receptor signalling, drives right-sided colonic tumorigenesis
Right-sided (proximal) colorectal cancer (CRC) has a poor prognosis and a distinct mutational profile, characterized by oncogenic BRAF mutations and aberrations in mismatch repair and TGFβ signalling. Here, we de...
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Article
Apc-mutant cells act as supercompetitors in intestinal tumour initiation
A delicate equilibrium of WNT agonists and antagonists in the intestinal stem cell (ISC) niche is critical to maintaining the ISC compartment, as it accommodates the rapid renewal of the gut lining. Disruption...
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Article
Open AccessChromosomal copy number heterogeneity predicts survival rates across cancers
Survival rates of cancer patients vary widely within and between malignancies. While genetic aberrations are at the root of all cancers, individual genomic features cannot explain these distinct disease outcom...
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Article
Open AccessExploring and modelling colon cancer inter-tumour heterogeneity: opportunities and challenges
Colon cancer inter-tumour heterogeneity is installed on multiple levels, ranging from (epi)genetic driver events to signalling pathway rewiring reflected by differential gene expression patterns. Although the ...
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Article
Open AccessBCL-2 family deregulation in colorectal cancer: potential for BH3 mimetics in therapy
Apoptosis is a form of programmed cell death that is essential for tissue homeostasis. De-regulation of the balance between proliferation and apoptosis contributes to tumor initiation. Particularly in the colo...
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Article
Open AccessUnsupervised class discovery in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma reveals cell-intrinsic mesenchymal features and high concordance between existing classification systems
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has the worst prognosis of all common cancers. However, divergent outcomes exist between patients, suggesting distinct underlying tumor biology. Here, we delineated this...
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Protocol
Isolation, Propagation, and Clonogenicity of Intestinal Stem Cells
Intestinal stem cell research has greatly aided our understanding of the biology of intestinal self-renewal but has also shed light on the role of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in carcinogenesis, cancer growth, and...
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Article
Stem cell functionality is microenvironmentally defined during tumour expansion and therapy response in colon cancer
Solid malignancies have been speculated to depend on cancer stem cells (CSCs) for expansion and relapse after therapy. Here we report on quantitative analyses of lineage tracing data from primary colon cancer ...
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Article
Open AccessPatched-2 functions to limit Patched-1 deficient skin cancer growth
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is one of the most common skin cancers, and is typically driven by an aberrantly activated Hedgehog (Hh) pathway. The Hh pathway is regulated by interactions between the Patched-1 (P...
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Article
Translational repression of pre-formed cytokine-encoding mRNA prevents chronic activation of memory T cells
Memory T cells are critical for the immune response to recurring infections. Their instantaneous reactivity to pathogens is empowered by the persistent expression of cytokine-encoding mRNAs. How the translatio...
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Article
Open AccessMolecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018
Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives....
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Article
Consensus molecular subtypes of colorectal cancer are recapitulated in in vitro and in vivo models
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a highly heterogeneous disease both from a molecular and clinical perspective. Several distinct molecular entities, such as microsatellite instability (MSI), have been defined that m...
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Article
Open AccessIntra-tumor heterogeneity from a cancer stem cell perspective
Tumor heterogeneity represents an ongoing challenge in the field of cancer therapy. Heterogeneity is evident between cancers from different patients (inter-tumor heterogeneity) and within a single tumor (intra...
