quality-controlled-sputum-analysis-by-flow-cytometry

Quality-Controlled Sputum Analysis by Flow Cytometry

Sputum, widely used to study the cellular content and other microenvironmental features to understand the health of the lung, is traditionally analyzed ...

bioAffinity Technologies

We have discovered an unexpected connection between a critical lung development and cancer gene termed thyroid transcription factor 1 (TTF-1 also known as NKX2-1) and cholesterol metabolism. Our published work implicates that TTF-1 positively regulates miR-33a which is known to repress ATP-binding cassette transporter 1 (ABCA1) and thus its cholesterol efflux activity. We set out to demonstrate that a higher TTF-1 expression would presumably inhibit cholesterol efflux and consequently raise intracellular cholesterol level. Surprisingly, raising TTF-1 expression actually lowers intracellular cholesterol level, which, we believe, is attributed to a direct transactivation of ABCA1 by TTF-1. Subsequently, we show that lung cancer cells primed with a TTF-1-driven decrease of cholesterol were more vulnerable to simvastatin, a frequently prescribed cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitor. In view of the fact that pathologists routinely interrogate human lung cancers for TTF-1 immunopositivity to guide diagnosis and the prevalent use of statins, TTF-1 should be further investigated as a putative biomarker of lung cancer vulnerability to statins.

Shao-Chiang Lai

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