Browsing by Author "Blanco, Alejandro"

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    Beyond tobacco: genomic disparities in lung cancer between smokers and never-smokers
    (Springer Nature, 2024) Garrido, Javiera; Bernal, Yanara; González, Evelin; Blanco, Alejandro; Sepúlveda-Hermosilla, Gonzalo; Freire, Matías; Oróstica, Karen; Rivas, Solange; Marcelain, Katherine; Owen, Gareth Ivor; Ibáñez Cáceres, Carolina; Corvalán Rodríguez, Alejandro; Garrido, Marcelo; Assar, Rodrigo; Lizana, Rodrigo; Cáceres-Molina, Javier; Ampuero, Diego; Ramos, Liliana; Pérez, Paola; Aren, Osvaldo; Chernilo, Sara; Fernández, Cristina; Spencer, María L.; Aguila, Jacqueline F.; Dossetto, Giuliano B.; Olea, Mónica A.; Rasse, Germán; Sánchez, Carolina; Amorim, Maria Galli de; Bartelli, Thais F.; Nunes, Diana N.; Dias-Neto, Emmanuel; Freitas, Helano C.; Armisén, Ricardo
    Tobacco use is one of the main risk factors for Lung Cancer (LC) development. However, about 10–20% of those diagnosed with the disease are never-smokers. For Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) there are clear differences in both the clinical presentation and the tumor genomic profiles between smokers and never-smokers. For example, the Lung Adenocarcinoma (LUAD) histological subtype in never-smokers is predominately found in young women of European, North American, and Asian descent. While the clinical presentation and tumor genomic profiles of smokers have been widely examined, never-smokers are usually underrepresented, especially those of a Latin American (LA) background. In this work, we characterize, for the first time, the difference in the genomic profiles between smokers and never-smokers LC patients from Chile. Methods We conduct a comparison by smoking status in the frequencies of genomic alterations (GAs) including somatic mutations and structural variants (fusions) in a total of 10 clinically relevant genes, including the eight most common actionable genes for LC (EGFR, KRAS, ALK, MET, BRAF, RET, ERBB2, and ROS1) and two established driver genes for malignancies other than LC (PIK3CA and MAP2K1). Study participants were grouped as either smokers (current and former, n = 473) or never-smokers (n = 200) according to self-report tobacco use at enrollment. Results Our findings indicate a higher overall GA frequency for never-smokers compared to smokers (58 vs. 45.7, p-value < 0.01) with the genes EGFR, KRAS, and PIK3CA displaying the highest prevalence while ERBB2, RET, and ROS1 the lowest. Never-smokers present higher frequencies in seven out of the 10 genes; however, smokers harbor a more complex genomic profile. The clearest differences between groups are seen for EGFR (15.6 vs. 21.5, p-value: < 0.01), PIK3CA (6.8 vs 9.5) and ALK (3.2 vs 7.5) in favor of never-smokers, and KRAS (16.3 vs. 11.5) and MAP2K1 (6.6 vs. 3.5) in favor of smokers. Alterations in these genes are comprised almost exclusively by somatic mutations in EGFR and mainly by fusions in ALK, and only by mutations in PIK3CA, KRAS and MAP2K1. Conclusions We found clear differences in the genomic landscape by smoking status in LUAD patients from Chile, with potential implications for clinical management in these limited-resource settings.
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    Immune-related IncRNA LINC00944 responds to variations in ADAR1 levels and it is associated with breast cancer prognosis
    (2021) de Santiago, Pamela R.; Blanco, Alejandro; Morales, Fernanda; Marcelain, Katherine; Harismendy, Olivier; Herrera, Marcela Sjoberg; Armisen, Ricardo
    Aims: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of woman deaths worldwide, being a major public health problem. It has been reported that the expression of the RNA-editing enzyme Adenosine Deaminase Acting on RNAs 1 (ADAR1) is upregulated in breast cancer, predicting poor prognosis in patients. A few reports in literature examine ADAR1 and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) interplay in cancer and suggest key roles in cancer-related pathways. This study aimed to investigate whether ADAR1 could alter the expression levels of lncRNAs and explore how those changes are related to breast cancer biology.