Purpose To determine the pharmacodynamic effects of Sonidegib (LDE-225) in prostate tumor tissue from men with high-risk localized prostate cancer, by comparing pre-surgical core-biopsy specimens to tumor tissue harvested post-treatment at prostatectomy. Methods We conducted a prospective randomized (Sonidegib vs. observation) open-label translational clinical trial in men with high-risk loca...

Several lines of evidence implicate zinc finger proteins of the Gli family in the final steps of Hedgehog signaling in normal development and disease. C-terminally truncated mutant GLI3 proteins are also associated with human syndromes, but it is not clear whether these C-terminally truncated Gli proteins fulfil the same function as full-length ones. Here, structure-function analyses of Gli pro...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Developmental morphogens play an important role in coordinating the ductular reaction and portal fibrosis occurring in the setting of cholangiopathies. However, little is known about how membrane signaling events in ductular reactive cells (DRCs) are transduced into nuclear transcriptional changes to drive cholangiocyte maturation and matrix deposition. Therefore, the aim of t...

Purpose: The hedgehog (HH) signaling pathway is a key regulator in tumorigenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma and is upregulated in pancreatic adenocarcinoma cancer stem cells (CSCs). GDC-0449 is an oral small-molecule inhibitor of the HH pathway. This study assessed the effect of GDC-0449–mediated HH inhibition in paired biopsies, followed by combined treatment with gemcitabine, in patients wi...

PURPOSE The hedgehog (HH) signaling pathway is a key regulator in tumorigenesis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma and is upregulated in pancreatic adenocarcinoma cancer stem cells (CSCs). GDC-0449 is an oral small-molecule inhibitor of the HH pathway. This study assessed the effect of GDC-0449-mediated HH inhibition in paired biopsies, followed by combined treatment with gemcitabine, in patients wit...

Chronic inflammation in the stomach induces metaplasia, the pre-cancerous lesion that precedes inflammation-driven neoplastic transformation. While Hedgehog signaling contributes to the initiation of some cancers, its role in gastric transformation remains poorly defined. We found that Helicobacter-infected C57BL/6 mice develop extensive mucous cell metaplasia at 6 month but not at 2 months pos...

The question of whether cancer stem/tumor-initiating cells (CSC/TIC) exist in human melanomas has arisen in the last few years. Here, we have used nonadherent spheres and the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) enzymatic activity to enrich for CSC/TIC in a collection of human melanomas obtained from a broad spectrum of sites and stages. We find that melanomaspheres display extensive in vitro self-ren...

Osteopontin (SPP1, a secreted phosphoprotein 1) is primarily involved in immune responses, tissue remodelling and biomineralization. However, it is also overexpressed in many cancers and regulates tumour progression by increasing migration, invasion and cancer stem cell self-renewal. Mechanisms of SPP1 overexpression in gliomas are poorly understood. We demonstrate overexpression of two out of ...

The Hedgehog (HH) signaling pathway is critical for normal embryonic development, tissue patterning and cell differentiation. Aberrant HH signaling is involved in multiple human cancers. HH signaling involves a multi-protein cascade activating the GLI proteins that transcriptionally regulate HH target genes. We have previously reported that HH signaling is essential for human colon cancer cell ...