Biology subjects

Lahoz, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Lahoz, A..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

ELOVL6 as a Therapeutic Target: Disrupting c-MYC-Driven Lipid Metabolism to Enhance Chemotherapy in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease, marked by a survival rate of only 12%. Consequently, the exploration of novel therapeutic strategies becomes a critical clinical imperative. Among the genetic alterations contributing to PDAC, c-MYC overexpression arises due to upstream mutations, amplifications, and copy number alterations. c-MYC serves as a key regulator in the tumors metabolic reprogramming, playing a pivotal role in proliferation, migration, and metastasis. This study delves into the investigation of the role of the elongase ELOVL6 in c-MYC-induced cell transformation and its potential as a therapeutic target in PDAC. Here, we demonstrate that c-MYC regulates lipid elongation to promote cell transformation, offering a new avenue for therapeutic intervention. Initially, we show the direct regulation of ELOVLs expression by c-MYC in various PDAC mouse models and cell lines, elucidating its upregulation during transformation and tumor progression. Genetic or chemical inhibition of ELOVL6 results in decreased proliferation and migration, accompanied by alterations in fatty acid elongation. These changes in fatty acid composition led to modifications in membrane rigidity, permeability, and thickness, which collectively affect micropinocytosis and macropinocytosis. Importantly, we observe an increase in Abraxane uptake and a synergistic effect when combined with ELOVL6 interference in vitro. In vivo validation demonstrates that ELOVL6 inhibition significantly reduces tumor growth and enhances the response to Abraxane, thereby increasing overall survival. Altogether, these results position ELOVL6 as a promising therapeutic target in the treatment of PDAC.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2022

FAMetA: a mass isotopologue-based tool for the comprehensive analysis of fatty acid metabolism

The use of stable isotope tracers and mass spectrometry (MS) is the gold standard method for the analysis of fatty acids (FAs) metabolism. Yet current state-of-the-art tools provide limited and difficult to interpret information about FA biosynthetic routes. Here we present FAMetA, an R-package and a web-based application (www.fameta.es) that use 13C mass-isotopologue profiles to estimate FA import, de novo lipogenesis, elongation, and desaturation in a user-friendly platform. The FAMetA workflow covers all the functionalities needed for MS data analyses. To illustrate its utility, different in vitro and in vivo experimental settings are used in which FA metabolism is modified. Thanks to the comprehensive characterisation of FA biosynthesis and the easy-to-interpret graphical representations compared to previous tools, FAMetA discloses unnoticed insights into how cells reprogramme their FA metabolism and, when combined with FASN, SCD1 and FADS2 inhibitors, it enables the straightforward identification of new FAs by the metabolic reconstruction of their synthesis route.

systems biology↗

bioRxiv2022

LipidMS 3.0: an R-package and a web-based tool for LC-MS/MS data processing and lipid annotation

SummaryLipidMS was initially envisioned to use fragmentation rules and data-independent acquisition (DIA) for lipid annotation. However, data-dependent acquisition (DDA) remains the most widespread acquisition mode for untargeted LC-MS/MS-based lipidomics. Here we present LipidMS 3.0, an R package that not only adds DDA and new lipid classes to its pipeline, but also the required functionalities to cover the whole data analysis workflow from pre-processing (i.e., peak-peaking, alignment and grouping) to lipid annotation. We applied the new workflow in the data analysis of a commercial human serum pool spiked with 68 lipid standards acquired in the full scan, DDA and DIA modes. When focusing on the detected lipid standard features and total identified lipids, LipidMS 3.0 data pre-processing performance is similar to XCMS, whereas it complements the annotations provided by MS-DIAL, one of the most widely used tools in lipidomics. To extend and facilitate LipidMS 3.0 usage among less experienced R-programming users, the workflow was also implemented as a web-based application. Availability and ImplementationThe LipidMS R-package is freely available at https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=LipidMS and as a website at http://www.lipidms.com. Contactjuancarlos_garcia@iislafe.es, agustin.lahoz@uv.es

bioinformatics↗

bioRxiv2019

Multiple hormonal signalling pathways function cell-nonautonomously to control protein homeostasis in Caenorhabditis elegans

Protein homeostasis is crucial for viability of all organisms, and mutations that enhance protein aggregation cause different human pathologies, including polyglutamine (polyQ) diseases, such as some spinocerebellar ataxias or Huntington disease. Here, we report that neuronal Stomatin-like protein UNC-1 protects against aggregation of prone-to-aggregate proteins, like polyQs, -synuclein and {beta}-amyloid, in C. elegans. UNC-1, in IL2 neurons, antagonizes the function of the cytosolic sulfotransferase SSU-1 in neurohormonal signalling from ASJ neurons. The target of this hormone is the nuclear hormone receptor NHR-1, which acts cell-autonomously to protect from aggregation in muscles. A second nuclear hormone receptor, DAF-12, functions oppositely to NHR-1 to maintain protein homeostasis. Transcriptomics analyses reveal deep changes in the expression of genes involved in fat metabolism, in unc-1 mutants, which are regulated by NHR-1. This suggest that fat metabolism changes, controlled by neurohormonal signalling, contributes to modulate protein homeostasis.

genetics↗