Biology subjects

Garbe, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Garbe, C..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Genomic correlates of metastatic competence and progression in human melanoma

Genomic events and their timing that grant a primary tumour the competence to disseminate remain poorly defined. We performed sequencing of 247 stage I/II primary cutaneous melanomas (CMs) and 60 matched metastases without intervening therapy from a prospectively followed registry cohort with a median followup of 92 months, integrating copy-number, mutational, protein and spatial-transcriptomic analyses. Relapse was not distinguished by oncogenic point mutations, which were largely shared between primaries and metastases, but by somatic copy-number alterations (SCNAs) and global chromosomal instability. We defined OncoCycle, a six-gene copy-number signature (amplification of CDK4, MCL1 and CD276; biallelic loss of CDKN2A, CDKN2B and TP53BP1) that predicted relapse independently of established clinicopathological features in melanoma, and a pan-cancer analysis. In matched pairs, metastatic progression was driven by continued copy-number evolution and reduction in intra-tumoural heterogeneity, rather than by acquired point mutations, and OncoCycle alterations from primary tumours were preserved in metastasis seeding clones. Clonal reconstruction revealed both monoclonal and polyclonal metastasis seeding, and spatial transcriptomics resolved copy-number-defined metastatic subclones occupying and programming distinct immune and stromal niches. Thus, metastatic competence was primed early by focal SCNAs on a background of chromosomal instability, elaborated by continued copy-number evolution during dissemination and spatio-temporal interactions with the tumour-microenvironment.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2025

Heme drives cardiac endothelial senescence in sepsis via STING activation

Sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction is a major contributor to sepsis-related mortality, and many patients continue to experience long-term cardiac complications after recovery. Here, we demonstrate that cardiac senescence is a key feature of sepsis-associated cardiac dysfunction, with endothelial cells identified as the predominant senescent population in septic cardiac tissue. Yet, the pathogenic drivers of endothelial senescence in sepsis remain poorly characterized. Among potential mediators, we found that elevated levels of heme, a byproduct of hemolysis, strongly correlate with increased endothelial senescence and impaired cardiac function. Mechanistic studies revealed that heme acts as a novel ligand for STING, exacerbating bacterial infection induced STING polymerization and activation, thereby promoting endothelial senescence. Notably, either STING inhibition or enhanced heme clearance via increased hemopexin expression significantly alleviated cardiac endothelial senescence and facilitated cardiac functional recovery in septic mice. These findings identify heme as a critical pathogenic driver of endothelial senescence and highlight heme clearance as a promising therapeutic strategy for mitigating sepsis induced cardiac dysfunction.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Individualised Proteogenomics Applied to Analysis of Amino Acid Variants in Malignant Melanoma

Analysis of patient-specific nucleotide variants is a cornerstone of personalised medicine. Although only 2% of the genomic sequence is protein-coding, mutations occurring in these regions have the potential to influence protein structure and may have severe impact on disease aetiology. Of special importance are variants that affect modifiable amino acid residues, as protein modifications involved in signal transduction networks cannot be analysed by genomics. Proteogenomics enables analysis of proteomes in context of patient- or tissue-specific non-synonymous nucleotide variants. Here, we developed a proteogenomics workflow and applied it to study resistance to serine/threonine-protein kinase B-raf (BRAF) inhibitor (BRAFi) vemurafenib in malignant melanoma cell line A375. This approach resulted in high identification and quantification of non-synonymous nucleotide variants and (phospho)proteins. We integrated multi-omic datasets to reconstruct the perturbed signalling networks associated with BRAFi resistance and to predict drug therapies with the potential to disrupt BRAFi resistance mechanism in A375 cells. Notably, we showed that aurora kinase A (AURKA) inhibition is effective and specific against BRAFi resistant A375 cells. Furthermore, we investigated nucleotide variants that interfere with protein post-translational modification (PTM) status and potentially influence cell signalling. Mass spectrometry (MS) measurements confirmed variant-driven PTM changes in 12 proteins; among them was the runt-related transcription factor 1 (RUNX1) displaying a variant on a known phosphorylation site S(Ph)276L. We confirmed the loss of phosphorylation site by MS and demonstrated the impact of this variant on RUNX1 interactome.

cancer biology↗