RI-MUHC Annual Report

RI-MUHC ANNUAL REPORT 2021

YEAR IN REVIEW

CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM (CRP)

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Overcoming the resistance of bladder tumours to radiation therapy

Drs. Wassim Kassouf and Jonathan Spicer demonstrated a critical role for neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) in radioresistance. “Our findings identify NETs as a potential therapeutic target to increase radiation efficacy and ultimately, improve overall survival for patients with bladder cancer and other solid tumours,” said doctoral student Surashri Shinde-Jadhav (Nat. Comm.)

First author Surashri Shinde-Jadhav and co-supervisors Drs. Wassim Kassouf and Jonathan Spicer (L to R); confocal image of tissue stained for immunofluorescence analyses courtesy of the authors

Paving the way to novel treatment for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)

A research team led by Dr. Jean-Jacques Lebrun found two cellular pathways involved in TNBC tumour development and a promising targeted combination therapy. The study defined a novel approach to prevent tumour formation and reduce tumour burden. (Nat. Comm.)

RI-MUHC researcher receives inaugural Canadian Cancer Society award

Dr. Julia Valdemarin Burnier received one of 15 inaugural Emerging Scholar Awards from the Canadian Cancer Society. This award will provide funding for five years to support her research on how tumour cells shed DNA into bodily fluids like blood.

Research associate and first author, Meiou Dai, PhD, and Jean-Jacques Lebrun, M.Sc., PhD, are filling an important medical gap in the metastatic breast cancer field (left); Dr. Julia Valdemarin Burnier (right) is an emerging scholar

Selected CRP news links

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Meiou Dai, Julien Boudreault, Ni Wang, Sophie Poulet, Girija Daliah, Gang Yan, Alaa Moamer, Sergio A. Burgos, Siham Sabri, Suhad Ali, Jean Jacques Lebrun. Differential regulation of cancer progression by CDK4/6 plays a central role in DNA replication and repair pathways. Cancer Research 81(5): 1332-1346, 2021. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-2121.

Dai M, Yan G, Wang N, Daliah G, Edick AM, Poulet S, Boudreault J, Ali S, Burgos SA, Lebrun JJ. In vivo genome-wide CRISPR screen reveals breast cancer vulnerabilities and synergistic mTOR/Hippo targeted combination therapy. Nature Communication 12(1):3055, 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23316-4.

Surashri Shinde-Jadhav, Jose Joao Mansure, Roni F. Rayes, Gautier Marcq, Mina Ayoub, Rodrigo Skowronski, Ronald Kool, France Bourdeau, Fadi Brimo, Jonathan Spicer, Wassim Kassouf. Role of neutrophil extracellular traps in radiation resistance of invasive bladder cancer. Nature Communication 12(1):2776, 2021. doi: 10. -1038/s41467-02123086-z.

Shu Qi, Stephanie Perrino, Xinyu Miao, Nathalie Lamarche-Vane, Pnina Brodt. The chemokine CCL7 regulates invadopodia maturation and MMP-9 mediated collagen degradation in liver-metastatic carcinoma cells. Cancer Letters 483: 98-113, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2020.03.018.

Thupten Tsering, Alexander Laskaris, Mohamed Abdouh, Prisca Bustamante, Sabrina Parent, Eva Jin, Sarah Tadhg, Ferrier, Goffredo Orazio Arena, Julia Valdemarin Burnier. Uveal melanoma-derived extracellular vesicles display transforming potential and carry protein cargo involved in metastatic niche preparation. Cancers 12(10): 2923, 2020. doi: 10.3390/cancers12102923.

Jason Hu, Armen G. Aprikian, Marie Vanhuyse, Alice Dragomir. Contemporary population-based analysis of bone mineral density testing in men initiating androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer. JNCCN Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network 18(10): 1374-1381, 2020. doi: 10.6004/jnccn.2020.7576.

Abdenour Nabid, Nathalie Carrier, Éric Vigneault, Thu van Nguyen, Peter Vavassis, Marc André Brassard, Boris Bahoric, Robert Archambault, François Vincent, Redouane Bettahar, Derek R. Wilke, Luis Souhami. Androgen deprivation therapy and radiotherapy in intermediate-risk prostate cancer: A randomised phase III trial. European Journal of Cancer 143: 64-74, 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2020.10.023.

Anwar Shams, Najat Binothman, Julien Boudreault, Ni Wang, Fuad Shams, Dana Hamam, Jun Tian, Alaa Moamer, Meiou Dai, Jean Jacques Lebrun, Suhad Ali. Prolactin receptor-driven combined luminal and epithelial differentiation in breast cancer restricts plasticity, stemness tumorigenesis and metastasis. Oncogenesis 10(1):10, 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41389-020-00297-5.

Amine Benmassaoud, Alan N.G. Barkun, Anne V. Gonzalez, Stéphane Beaudoin, Ali Bessissow, Alain M. Bitton, Myriam Martel, Sheryl White, Yen I. Chen. Novel Negative Pressure Box for Aerosol Protection During Upper Endoscopy: A Brief Report on Safety and Barrier Performance. The American Journal of Gastroenterology 115(12): 1936, 2020. doi: 10.14309/ajg.0000000000000840.

Ximeng Mao, Joelle P. Pineau, Roy Keyes, Shirin A. Enger. RapidBrachyDL: Rapid Radiation Dose Calculations in Brachytherapy Via Deep Learning. International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics 108(3): 802-812, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2020.04.045.

Gang Yan, Meiou Dai, Chenjing Zhang, Sophie Poulet, Alaa Moamer, Ni Wang, Julien Boudreault, Suhad Ali, Jean Jacques Lebrun. TGF β /cyclin D1/Smad-mediated inhibition of BMP4 promotes breast cancer stem cell self-renewal activity. Oncogenesis 10(3), 2021. doi: 10.1038/s41389-021-00310-5.