Publications by authors named "Da-Qiang Li"

The balance between supply and demand of ecosystem services in arid zones is crucial for regional sustainable development. Taking Xinjiang as the study area, we analyzed the spatial and temporal variations of the supply and demand of food production, habitat quality, carbon storage, soil conservation, water yield and greenfield leisure in relation to the intensity of human activities during 2000-2020 by using bivariate spatial autocorrelation method. The results showed that from 2000 to 2020, the six ecosystem services in the study area were in a state where their supply was far greater than demand (supply/demand ratio>1).

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most lethal subtype of breast cancer due to its aggressive clinical features and the lack of effective targeted therapeutics. Mitochondrial metabolism is intimately linked to TNBC progression and therapeutic resistance and is an attractive therapeutic target for TNBC. Here, it is first reported that human transmembrane protein 65 (TMEM65), a poorly characterized mitochondrial inner-membrane protein-encoding gene in human cancer, acts as a novel oncogene in TNBC to promote tumor growth, metastasis, and cisplatin resistance both in vivo and in vitro.

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Hormone receptor-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative breast cancer (HR+/HER2- BC) is the most common subtype, with a high risk of long-term recurrence and metastasis. Endocrine therapy (ET) combined with cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors is a standard treatment for advanced/metastatic HR+/HER2- BC, but resistance remains a major clinical challenge. We report that kinesin family member C2 (KIFC2) was amplified in approximately 50% of patients with HR+/HER2- BC, and its high expression was associated with poor disease outcome, increased tumor protein p53 (TP53) somatic mutation, and active pyrimidine metabolism.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a difficulty and bottleneck in the clinical treatment of breast cancer due to a lack of effective therapeutic targets. Herein, we first report that secernin 2 (SCRN2), an uncharacterized gene in human cancer, acts as a novel tumor suppressor in TNBC to inhibit cancer progression and enhance therapeutic sensitivity to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition both in vitro and in vivo. SCRN2 is downregulated in TNBC through chaperone-mediated autophagic degradation, and its downregulation is associated with poor patient prognosis.

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Article Synopsis
  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive type of breast cancer, and recent analysis revealed Sideroflexin 1 (SFXN1) is significantly upregulated in TNBC tumor tissues, though its exact role in the cancer is not completely understood.
  • Experimental methods, including immunoblotting and mass spectrometry, identified that SFXN1 overexpression promotes TNBC growth and metastasis by inhibiting autophagic degradation of the CIP2A protein, which is linked to tumor progression.
  • These findings suggest that targeting SFXN1 could lead to new therapeutic strategies for patients suffering from TNBC, particularly by engaging with existing treatments such as lapatinib to hinder tumor progression
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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer. Transcriptional dysregulation is a hallmark of cancer, and several transcriptional regulators have been demonstrated to contribute to cancer progression. In this study, we identified an upregulation of the transcriptional corepressor downregulator of transcription 1-associated protein 1 (DRAP1) in TNBC, which was closely associated with poor recurrence-free survival in patients with TNBC.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the deadliest subtype of breast cancer owing to the lack of effective therapeutic targets. Splicing factor 3a subunit 2 (SF3A2), a poorly defined splicing factor, was notably elevated in TNBC tissues and promoted TNBC progression, as confirmed by cell proliferation, colony formation, transwell migration, and invasion assays. Mechanistic investigations revealed that E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase UBR5 promoted the ubiquitination-dependent degradation of SF3A2, which in turn regulated UBR5, thus forming a feedback loop to balance these two oncoproteins.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most lethal subtype of breast cancer with no targeted therapy. Spermatid perinuclear RNA binding protein (STRBP), a poorly characterized RNA-binding protein (RBP), has an essential role in normal spermatogenesis and sperm function, but whether and how its dysregulation contributing to cancer progression has not yet been explored. Here, we report that STRBP functions as a novel oncogene to drive TNBC progression.

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Article Synopsis
  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a particularly aggressive type of breast cancer with no effective treatment targets, leading researchers to identify C9orf142 as a key protein that is overexpressed in TNBC cases.* -
  • Functional experiments showed that C9orf142 promotes tumor growth and metastasis in TNBC by activating the mouse double minute 2 (MDM2) signaling pathway, which is crucial for cell cycle progression.* -
  • Knocking down C9orf142 not only reduces tumor growth and spread but also makes TNBC cells more sensitive to treatment with the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib, indicating its potential as a therapeutic target.*
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  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is highly lethal, and exploring its metastasis mechanisms and targets is crucial for treatment development.
  • The study investigates the role of ETHE1, revealing that while it doesn't affect TNBC cell growth, it enhances cell migration and lung metastasis through the phosphorylation of eIF2α.
  • Targeting the pathways involved in ETHE1's action, particularly using ISRIB, could provide a novel therapeutic approach for managing TNBC.
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Background: Microtubule-targeing agents (MTAs), such as paclitaxel (PTX) and vincristine (VCR), kill cancer cells through activtion of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) and induction of mitotic arrest, but the development of resistance poses significant clinical challenges.

Methods: Immunoblotting and RT-qPCR were used to investigate potential function and related mechanism of MORC2. Flow cytometry analyses were carried out to determine cell cycle distribution and apoptosis.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), although highly lethal, lacks validated therapeutic targets. Here, we report that U2 snRNP-associated SURP motif-containing protein (U2SURP), a poorly defined member of the serine/arginine rich protein family, was significantly upregulated in TNBC tissues, and its high expression was associated with poor prognosis of TNBC patients. MYC, a frequently amplified oncogene in TNBC tissues, enhanced U2SURP translation through an eIF3D (eukaryotic translation initiation factor 3 subunit D)-dependent mechanism, resulting in the accumulation of U2SURP in TNBC tissues.

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SUMOylation regulates a plethora of biological processes, and its inhibitors are currently under investigation in clinical trials as anticancer agents. Thus, identifying new targets with site-specific SUMOylation and defining their biological functions will not only provide new mechanistic insights into the SUMOylation signaling but also open an avenue for developing new strategy for cancer therapy. MORC family CW-type zinc finger 2 (MORC2) is a newly identified chromatin-remodeling enzyme with an emerging role in the DNA damage response (DDR), but its regulatory mechanism remains enigmatic.

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Unlabelled: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents the most lethal subtype of breast cancer due to its aggressive clinical features and the lack of effective therapeutic targets. To identify novel approaches for targeting TNBC, we examined the role of protein phosphatases in TNBC progression and chemoresistance. Protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunit 14B (PPP1R14B), a poorly defined member of the protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunits, was aberrantly upregulated in TNBC tissues and predicted poor prognosis.

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ATP-dependent chromatin-remodeling complexes can reorganize and remodel chromatin and thereby act as important regulator in various cellular processes. Based on considerable studies over the past two decades, it has been confirmed that the abnormal function of chromatin remodeling plays a pivotal role in genome reprogramming for oncogenesis in cancer development and/or resistance to cancer therapy. Recently, exciting progress has been made in the identification of genetic alteration in the genes encoding the chromatin-remodeling complexes associated with tumorigenesis, as well as in our understanding of chromatin-remodeling mechanisms in cancer biology.

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Treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) remains challenging. Deciphering the orchestration of metabolic pathways in regulating ferroptosis will provide new insights into TNBC therapeutic strategies. Here, we integrated the multiomics data of our large TNBC cohort (n = 465) to develop the ferroptosis atlas.

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Background: N-acetyltransferase 10 (NAT10), an abundant nucleolar protein with both lysine and RNA cytidine acetyltransferase activities, has been implicated in Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome and human cancer. We and others recently demonstrated that NAT10 is translocated from the nucleolus to the nucleoplasm after DNA damage, but the underlying mechanism remains unexplored.

Methods: The NAT10 and PARP1 knockout (KO) cell lines were generated using CRISPR-Cas9 technology.

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Article Synopsis
  • Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is difficult to treat due to a lack of targeted therapies, and recent research has identified TMEM63A as a novel oncogene that promotes various aggressive characteristics of TNBC cells.
  • TMEM63A is located in the endoplasmic reticulum and lysosome membrane, interacting with proteins VCP and DERL1, regulating its own degradation and stabilizing DERL1, thereby driving TNBC progression.
  • Targeting TMEM63A with VCP inhibitors like CB-5083 shows potential for therapeutic strategies against TNBC, offering insights for future treatments.
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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer, which is characterized by high heterogeneity and metabolic dysregulation. Inositol monophosphatase 1(IMPA1) is critical for the metabolism of inositol, which has profound effects on gene expression and other biological processes. Here, we report for the first time that IMPA1 was upregulated in TNBC cell lines and tissues, and enhanced cell colony formation and proliferation in vitro and tumorigenicity in vivo.

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Aims: MORC family CW-type zinc finger 2 (MORC2), a GHKL-type ATPase, is aberrantly upregulated in multiple types of human tumors with profound effects on cancer aggressiveness, therapeutic resistance, and clinical outcome, thus making it an attractive drug target for anticancer therapy. However, the antagonists of MORC2 have not yet been documented.

Methods And Results: We report that MORC2 is a relatively stable protein, and the N-terminal homodimerization but not ATP binding and hydrolysis is crucial for its stability through immunoblotting analysis and Quantitative real-time PCR.

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Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly lethal disease due to aggressive clinical phenotype and the lack of validated therapeutic targets. Our recent quantitative proteomic analysis of 90 cases of TNBC tissues and 72 cases of matched adjacent normal tissues revealed that the expression levels of BPTF-associated protein of 18 KDa (BAP18), a component of the MLL1 and NURF chromatin complexes, were upregulated in TNBC tissues relative to normal tissues. However, the biological function and the underlying mechanism of BAP18 in TNBC progression remain unexplored.

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Immunotherapy has achieved limited success in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive disease with a poor prognosis. Commensal microbiota have been proven to colonize the mammary gland, but whether and how they modulate the tumor microenvironment remains elusive. We performed a multiomics analysis of a cohort of patients with TNBC (n = 360) and found genera under Clostridiales, and the related metabolite trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) was more abundant in tumors with an activated immune microenvironment.

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We report a comprehensive proteomic study of a 90-case cohort of paired samples of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in quantification, phosphorylation, and DNA-binding capacity. Four integrative subtypes (iP-1-4) are stratified on the basis of global proteome and phosphoproteome, each of which exhibits distinct molecular and pathway features. Scaffold and co-expression network analyses of three proteomic datasets, integrated with those from genome and transcriptome of the same cohort, reveal key pathways and master regulators that, characteristic of TNBC subtypes, play important regulatory roles within and between scaffold sub-structures and co-expression communities.

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Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of cancer. However, systematic characterizations of metabolites in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) are still lacking. Our study profiled the polar metabolome and lipidome in 330 TNBC samples and 149 paired normal breast tissues to construct a large metabolomic atlas of TNBC.

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Article Synopsis
  • RNF144A is a poorly understood E3 ubiquitin ligase that has emerged as a potential tumor suppressor, but its specific mechanisms are not fully known.
  • Researchers used GeneChip technology to analyze gene expression in breast cancer cells, uncovering that RNF144A influences 128 differentially expressed genes, particularly downregulating glial maturation factor γ (GMFG).
  • The study revealed that RNF144A interacts with transcription factor YY1, leading to YY1's degradation, which in turn reduces GMFG expression and inhibits various aggressive cancer behaviors in breast cells.
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