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Biology subjects

Arabzadeh, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Arabzadeh, M..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

BLTP3A dysfunction unleashes lysosomal stress-induced antitumor immunity through STING

High-grade serous ovarian cancer progresses within a lipid-rich ascites microenvironment that engages stress-adaptation programs supporting malignant growth, yet how failed stress resolution influences tumor progression remains incompletely defined. Here, we show that unresolved lysosomal stress restrains tumor progression by sustaining tumor cell-intrinsic STING activity and reorganizing antitumor immunity. We identify BLTP3A as a lysosomal stress-resolution factor in ovarian cancer and show that the common germline missense variant BLTP3A M1098T increases stress-induced lysosomal damage. Patients carrying M1098T had longer overall survival and tumors enriched for cytotoxic T cell-myeloid neighborhoods. In syngeneic tumors, Bltp3a loss or orthologous variant expression delayed progression and generated Cxcl9+ antigen-presenting macrophage niches; M1098T-expressing human tumors similarly promoted interferon-responsive myeloid and T-cell enrichment in humanized mice. Mechanistically, ascites-induced lysosomal stress activated a STING-ATF4-BLTP3A feedback program. BLTP3A dysfunction disrupted CASM-associated lysosomal stress resolution, resulting in prolonged STING activity and sustained tumor-derived IFN-{lambda} without increased cGAMP. Tumor-cell STING and IFN-{lambda} were required for immune remodeling and tumor control. Thus, BLTP3A-dependent lysosomal stress resolution constrains the persistence of stress-induced STING signaling, whereas failure of this response sustains a tumor-intrinsic inflammatory program that organizes protective antitumor immunity.

cancer biology↗

Monoallelic expression characterizes a distinct molecular and clinical group of breast tumors

In diploid cells, allelic imbalance occurs when gene alleles are expressed at different levels. To investigate the allelic imbalance landscape in tumor samples, we developed Interval-Based Allelic Imbalance Detection (IB-Aid), a quantitative framework that uses interval arithmetic to robustly distinguish monoallelic from biallelic gene expression by computing confidence intervals based on sequencing measurement uncertainty. We applied this approach to The Cancer Genome Atlas Breast Invasive Carcinoma tumor samples and through unsupervised gene enrichment analyses, identified a group of patients with a distinct monoallelic gene expression signature. Notably, these patients were enriched in Black/African American patients and had tumors which had not been previously classified into any established molecular subtype. Clinically, these tumors were associated with poor overall survival, with survival outcomes comparable to the aggressive basal subtype. These findings suggest a potential link between allelic imbalance and breast cancer development and point to genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that drive allelic imbalance as novel biomarkers for prognosis and design of targeted treatment strategies.

cancer biology↗