Perturbation of macropinocytosis triggers methuosis, a non-apoptotic cell death characterized by cytoplasmic vacuolization. However, the regulatory mechanisms of methuosis remain poorly defined. Lipid metabolism dysregulation is implicated in various cell death pathways, while its role in methuosis has remained elusive. Herein, LXX-8250, an isopropanolamine derivative of β-elemene, induced a vacuolization-associated cell death in breast and liver cancer cell lines. This process was accompanied by massive macropinocytosis, thereby confirming the occurrence of methuosis. Mechanistically, hypoxia-inducible lipid droplet-associated protein (HILPDA), a key regulator that promotes intracellular triacylglycerol (TAG) accumulation, was identified as the direct target of LXX-8250. By suppressing HILPDA, LXX-8250 inhibited diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1) and activated adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL). Consequently, lipid droplets and cellular TAG levels were reduced, while the subsequent increased diacylglycerol (DAG) stimulated macropinosome formation, leading to methuosis in these cells. In this study, we discover a novel methuosis agonist LXX-8250, and elucidate the critical role of HILPDA repression-dysregulated lipid metabolism in methuosis. Our study highlighted the potential of targeting this pathway as a therapeutic strategy to trigger cancer cell death.

Immunotherapeutic approaches for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) remain limited to programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) blockade. Although genomics studies have characterized key driver mutations in cSCC, preclinical models that faithfully recapitulate both the genetic landscape and immune microenvironment of the human disease, that could drive the development of novel, effective therapies, are lacking.

HLA-G is a non-classical MHC class I molecule with potent immunoregulatory functions that is aberrantly expressed in multiple malignancies, yet its tumor-intrinsic role remains poorly defined. To characterize this potential oncogenic role of HLA-G in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), we utilized integrated transcriptomic, in vitro, and in vivo approaches. Analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) ccRCC cohort revealed that elevated HLA-G expression was associated with immunosuppressive programs and cell populations. Interrogation of a publicly available ccRCC single-cell RNA sequencing dataset revealed that HLA-G expression within tumor epithelial clusters is associated with hypoxia-driven, metabolic transcriptional programs. Multiplex immunofluorescence of human ccRCC specimens confirmed the presence of tumor cell-intrinsic HLA-G expression in advanced disease. Functional studies using RCC7 cells expressing the full-length canonical HLA-G isoform (RCC7/HLA-G1) demonstrated increased proliferation, migration, clonogenicity, cell-cycle progression, and resistance to apoptosis compared with HLA-G-negative RCC7wt cells. RCC7/HLA-G1 xenografts exhibited accelerated tumor growth accompanied by the activation of proliferative, stemness-related, and metabolic programs. Multi-omics analyses further revealed enhanced mitochondrial activity and redox metabolic adaptation in HLA-G-expressing tumors. Mechanistically, HLA-G expression was associated with increased VEGF-C expression and enhanced VEGFR3 signaling, suggesting the activation of a VEGF-C/VEGFR3-associated pro-survival pathway. In three-dimensional tumor spheroid immune cell co-culture models, HLA-G expression reduced CD8⁺ T-cell-mediated cytotoxicity while promoting regulatory T-cell expansion and macrophage polarization toward an immunosuppressive M2-like phenotype. Collectively, these findings establish HLA-G as a key contributor to tumor progression and immune suppression in ccRCC and support HLA-G as a promising therapeutic target.

Homologous recombination repair (HRR) pathway defects are critical drivers of hereditary cancers, yet population-specific prevalence data from India remain limited. Current testing practices disproportionately focus on BRCA1/2, potentially underidentifying patients with other HRR gene variants who could benefit from targeted therapies.

This review shares the ongoing work of the global Worldwide Innovative Network (WIN) Consortium for Precision Medicine to synthesize emerging cancer treatment data and to define the requirements for a common global cancer database that can truly support precision oncology. We performed a narrative review of emerging cancer treatment data, molecular profiling technologies, and existing clinicogenomic databases, focusing on how tumors are characterized, how subgroups are defined, and how demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors are captured. The growth in molecular profiling technologies and the development of new targeted therapies are transforming cancer care. Tumors, regardless of tissue origin, are increasingly defined as composites of multiple, often rare, subgroups, each with distinct biology and likely response to specific therapies, based on multidimensional profiling of the tumor and its microenvironment. The solution lies in building vast databases that capture racial and ethnic diversity, reflected in genomic data, as well as diet and lifestyle factors that may have epigenetic impact on gene expression and post-translational modifications. A truly inclusive and informative data set must reflect global diversity, and there are multiple examples of demography-dependent differences in genomic signals. With members caring for and studying patients with cancer across five continents, WIN is actively exploring pathways to create a global cancer database, rich in clinical and molecular detail, granular enough for precise analysis, and large enough to power artificial intelligence-driven insights, provided appropriate data quality, validation, and governance frameworks are in place. This review surveys the current landscape and outlines practical paths forward to achieve this goal.

Primary breast neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs) are rare, high-grade malignancies that are frequently grouped with invasive breast carcinomas with neuroendocrine differentiation (IBC-NED), despite uncertain biological equivalence. We sought to define the clinicopathologic, immunophenotypic, and genomic features of breast NEC and to determine whether they represent a biologically distinct entity.

Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) are highly aggressive, WHO grade 4 glial tumors that arise in midline central nervous system structures and are defined by K27M mutations in histone H3 genes. These K27M mutations shape intratumoral myeloid cell composition in DMG. In H3.1K27M DMGs, genetic ablation of monocyte recruitment reshapes the tumor microenvironment (TME) by reducing monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) and increasing microglia and neutrophil presence, with overall survival remaining unchanged, indicating compensatory myeloid remodeling is occurring. Here, by using CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing, we generated a mouse model deficient for CCR1/CCR2/CCR3/CCR5 (Δ1235). Using this strain, we effectively abolished monocyte and MDM infiltration and reversed compensatory recruitment of CCR1+ neutrophils. Abolishing MDMs in tumors skewed remaining neutrophils and microglia toward a homeostatic state, reduced expression of immune checkpoint molecules on T cells, and extended the survival of H3.1K27M DMG-bearing mice. In contrast, H3.3K27M DMG showed independence from MDM recruitment, suggesting reliance on other TME-driven signaling. Last, H3.1K27M DMGs exhibited reduced microglia presence and a dose-dependent increase in MDM infiltration postirradiation. MDM depletion did not further enhance radiation efficacy, potentially due to compensatory recruitment of classical neutrophils. Collectively, these data reveal histone mutation-specific myeloid dependencies in DMG, highlighting MDM-independent mechanisms in H3.3K27M tumors and MDM-dependent pathways in H3.1K27M tumors.

Learning to Rank (LeToR) methods have gained increasing attention in drug response prediction, offering a direct way to prioritize effective treatments for cancer cell lines. In this study, we systematically benchmark six ranking loss functions, including state-of-the-art listwise methods, and five types of molecular representations across two large-scale drug screening datasets, CTRP and PRISM. Using high-dimensional gene expression profiles and various drug fingerprints and descriptors, we evaluated models under multiple validation setups and ranking metrics. Our results demonstrate that listwise loss functions such as LambdaLoss and LambdaRank consistently excel in both early and overall ranking quality. Additionally, combining molecular fingerprints with physicochemical descriptors yielded improved performance. A novel attention-based mechanism and a modified version of RankingSHAP were integrated to enhance interpretability, uncovering key genes and substructures aligned with known biological insights. The explainability pipeline successfully distinguished estrogen receptor-positive (ER⁺) and estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) breast cancer subtypes. The model successfully identified critical substructures in docetaxel, an FDA-approved therapy, and triptolide, which is currently undergoing clinical evaluation for breast cancer. These findings are consistent with established structure-activity relationship (SAR) data. Overall, this study presents a comprehensive evaluation framework and underscores the importance of carefully selecting loss functions and feature representations when developing robust and interpretable drug-ranking systems.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and a leading cause of death. Traditional risk assessment models, such as the Gail model, lack molecular insight, limiting their usefulness for personalized prevention strategies. We developed a computational framework that integrates individual transcriptomic data with dynamic modeling of cell signaling to create personalized models for 30 subjects (including 15 who later developed breast cancer). Using features extracted from the dynamic simulation, we stratified individuals into four risk clusters with significantly different disease-free periods. The highest-risk group had a median disease-free period of 6.05 years, which is significantly shorter than that of the other clusters. This high-risk phenotype was characterized by hyperactive MAPK signaling (high phosphorylated ERK, phosphorylated RSK, and c-Fos). This approach demonstrates that interactions among pathway components provide additional information beyond static gene expression profiles in risk assessment and may serve as a promising tool for guiding personalized prevention strategies.

Smoking cessation decreases lung cancer progression; however, its effects on precancerous lesions and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study established a mouse model of precancerous pulmonary nodules and employed single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) and immune repertoire sequencing (IR-seq) to elucidate the regulatory mechanisms by which smoking cessation influences the development of lung precancerous lesions.

This study aimed to links between ATP7B, CTR1, GPX4, 53BP1, p-H2AX and p-ATM expression, platinum sensitivity and prognosis in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).

R-loops are three-stranded nucleic acid structures comprising a DNA: RNA hybrid and a displaced single-stranded DNA strand. Their abnormal persistence can trigger transcription-replication conflicts, replication-fork stalling, DNA damage, chromosomal instability, inflammatory signalling, and epigenetic reprogramming. These effects are particularly relevant to colorectal cancer (CRC), which is frequently characterised by replication stress, defective DNA repair, genomic instability, and treatment resistance. This review summarises current evidence linking altered R-loop homeostasis to CRC initiation, progression, metastasis, molecular heterogeneity, and therapeutic response. We discuss key regulators with evidence in CRC or intestinal models, including RNASEH1/2, DDX21, DHX9, TOP1, POLD1/POLD3, and ATR, while distinguishing them from emerging mechanisms requiring CRC-specific validation. We also evaluate major R-loop detection strategies and their limitations. R-loop-associated vulnerabilities may influence responses to irinotecan, ATR/CHK1 and WEE1 inhibitors, PARP-related strategies, and immunotherapy. However, most evidence remains preclinical, highlighting the need for orthogonal detection methods, patient-derived models, and clinically annotated cohorts.

Altered platinum chemotherapy sensitivity is a major determinant of treatment outcome in ovarian cancer; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying adaptive chemotherapy responses remain incompletely understood. Sphingomyelin synthase 1 (SMS1) and sphingomyelin synthase 2 (SMS2), key enzymes involved in sphingomyelin biosynthesis, have been implicated in cancer biology, but their roles in platinum chemotherapy response remain unclear.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly aggressive malignancy characterized by unfavorable clinical outcomes. Identifying novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets is essential for advancing HCC management. Although DBF4 zinc finger B (DBF4B) has been associated with the progression of various cancers, its specific role in HCC remains poorly understood.

B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with KMT2A rearrangements (KMT2Ar B-ALL) represents a distinct, high-risk subtype in adults, characterized by aggressive disease biology, high relapse rates, and inferior long-term survival. Conventional intensive chemotherapy, even when consolidated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), yields suboptimal outcomes, underscoring the need for novel therapeutic approaches. In recent years, substantial progress has been made with the introduction of antibody-based immunotherapies, cellular immunotherapies, and small molecular inhibitors, reshaping the treatment landscape for this challenging subgroup. This review provides a comprehensive overview of current and emerging therapeutic strategies for adult patients with KMT2Ar B-ALL. We summarize outcomes associated with pediatric-inspired chemotherapy and allo-HSCT, focus on clinical evidence for antibody-based immunotherapy including blinatumomab and inotuzumab ozogamicin, across frontline, consolidation, and relapsed or refractory settings. Advances in cellular immunotherapy, particularly CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, are discussed, with a focus on unique resistance mechanisms such as antigen loss and lineage switch. In addition, we review the biological rationale, efficacy and emerging resistance mechanisms of menin inhibitors, a promising class of agents specifically targeting the epigenetic dependency of KMT2A-rearranged leukemia. Finally, other molecular approaches, including epigenetic modifiers, apoptosis pathway inhibitors, and signaling pathway inhibitors are discussed. Despite these advances, treatment resistance and disease relapse remain major obstacles. These ongoing challenges highlight the urgent need for multi-center, prospective trials to investigate rational combination strategies to improve outcomes for adults with KMT2Ar B-ALL.

Immune escape is a hallmark of cancers, which affects the efficacy of immunotherapy. Herein, this study analyzed the significance of GATA1/FGL1 in the immune escape of cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CESC) to deepen the understanding of immune escape-associated molecular mechanisms. In silico analysis predicted the correlations of FGL1 with CESC prognosis and CD8+ T cell infiltration as well as the relation between FGL1 and GATA1. After FGL1 and/or GATA1 gain- and loss-of-function, CC cells were co-cultured with CD8+ T cells. The sensitivity of CC cells to CD8+ T cells was assessed, as well as the secretion of perforin, GzmB, IFN-γ, and TNF-α. Also, CD8+ T cell proliferation and apoptosis were measured. The binding of GATA1 to the FGL1 promoter was validated through luciferase and ChIP assays. GATA1-knockdown U14 cells were transplanted into immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice in combination with or without CD8α mAb to ascertain the impacts of GATA1 on tumor growth and immune escape in CESC in vivo. Knockdown of either FGL1 or GATA1 markedly enhanced the sensitivity of CC cells to CD8+ T cell‑mediated cytotoxicity and increased the secretion of perforin, GzmB, IFN‑γ, and TNF‑α. It also promoted CD8+ T cell proliferation while reducing their apoptosis. These effects of GATA1 knockdown were partially negated by FGL1. In vivo, GATA1 knockdown prominently diminished the tumor growth and increased the infiltration and cytotoxic effects of CD8+ T cells. Collectively, GATA1 knockdown facilitates CD8+ T cell responses and suppresses immune escape in CESC by downregulating FGL1.

Myeloid cells play crucial roles in cancer progression, influencing tumor growth, metastasis, and response to immunotherapy. The mechanisms shaping their diverse functions in the tumors remain poorly understood and may offer therapeutic opportunities. Here, we identify the lipid-presenting molecule CD1d as a regulator of tumor progression and myeloid heterogeneity in the tumor microenvironment. Using several mouse models of breast cancer, we demonstrate that genetic deletion or antibody-mediated targeting of CD1d leads to reduced tumor growth, altered immune infiltration, and improved efficacy of anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. Specifically, CD1d targeting reshapes the intratumoral myeloid compartment, enhancing proinflammatory programs and resulting in accumulation of inflammatory monocytes. The CD1d-dependent control of myeloid cell functional differentiation is cell-intrinsic and conserved in human and mouse. Through single-cell RNA sequencing, we define the transcriptional landscape associated with CD1d deficiency and derive a gene signature that correlates with clinical outcomes and response to immunotherapy in breast cancer patients. Thus, CD1d could provide a potential target to alter tumor-infiltrating myeloid populations and enhance immunotherapy responses.

Cancer originates from the uncontrolled proliferation of normal cells. Previous studies have demonstrated that CDC25B, a cell cycle-regulating phosphatase, is overexpressed in various tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma, and its expression level may serve as a prognostic biomarker. The present study investigated the upstream miRNA regulators of CDC25B and demonstrated that their interactions can inhibit hepatocellular carcinoma progression. Here, stable hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines overexpressing or knocking down CDC25B were established using lentiviral vectors. The effects of CDC25B expression on the invasive phenotype of hepatocellular carcinoma cells were analyzed using plate cloning, scratch assays, and Transwell assays, and a subcutaneous tumor xenograft model in mice was established to evaluate the impact of CDC25B on tumor growth in vivo. Furthermore, dual-luciferase reporter assays were used to validate the targeted regulatory relationship between miR-200a-3p and CDC25B, while miR-200a-3p mimics and inhibitors were employed to elucidate the specific downstream mechanisms. We found that high expression of CDC25B significantly enhanced the epithelial-mesenchymal transition process, thereby accelerating the proliferation, invasion, and migration of hepatocellular carcinoma cells, whereas CDC25B knockdown exerted the opposite effects. In vivo tumorigenicity experiments in nude mice confirmed that overexpression of CDC25B promoted tumor growth. In addition, the dual-luciferase reporter assay confirmed that miR-200a-3p specifically targets and downregulates CDC25B expression, thereby inhibiting hepatocellular carcinoma progression.

Meningiomas exhibit marked biological heterogeneity that is not fully captured by current histopathological grading. Increasing evidence suggests that mitochondrial metabolism contributes to tumor aggressiveness; however, the molecular mechanisms regulating mitochondrial function in meningiomas remain poorly defined. Here, we investigated the role of mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM)-driven mitochondrial biogenesis and translation in meningioma progression. We performed integrative transcriptomic, immunohistochemical, and mitochondrial DNA analyses in a well-characterized cohort of 91 meningiomas, comprising World Health Organization grade 1 (G1) and grade 2 (G2) tumors with long-term clinical follow-up. RNA sequencing identified enrichment for mitochondrial metabolic pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation and ATP metabolism, that was preferentially activated in G2 meningiomas. TFAM and its upstream regulator PGC1α were significantly upregulated at both mRNA and protein levels in G2 tumors and exhibited a positive correlation, consistent with enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis. Although mitochondrial DNA copy number did not differ significantly between grades, G2 meningiomas showed a trend toward increased mitochondrial mass. Notably, G2 meningiomas demonstrated marked enrichment of mitoribosomal genes, including MRPL15, MRPL35, MRPL42 and MRPS22, whose expression correlated positively with TFAM and PGC1α expression levels. Network analysis identified TFAM as a central hub linking mitochondrial biogenesis, translation, and metabolic pathway activation. These findings were independently validated using a publicly available meningioma transcriptomic dataset. Together, our results reveal a TFAM-centered mitochondrial regulatory program that integrates mitochondrial biogenesis, translational capacity, and oxidative metabolism in higher-grade meningiomas. This mitochondrial translational axis represents a previously unrecognized mechanism underlying meningioma progression and highlights potential metabolic vulnerabilities for therapeutic intervention.

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Cigarette smoke extract (CSE) is a major environmental factor driving NSCLC progression, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood. Protein arginine methyltransferase 6 (PRMT6) is implicated in various malignancies, including NSCLC, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) contributes to metastasis and poor prognosis in this disease. However, the role of PRMT6 in CSE-induced NSCLC progression has not been elucidated.