Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

About: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is a nonprofit organization based out in Cape Town, South Africa. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 12322 authors who have published 30954 publications receiving 2288772 citations. The organization is also known as: Fred Hutch & The Hutch.

Critical assessment of automated flow cytometry data analysis techniques

Abstract: Traditional methods for flow cytometry (FCM) data processing rely on subjective manual gating. Recently, several groups have developed computational methods for identifying cell populations in multidimensional FCM data. The Flow Cytometry: Critical Assessment of Population Identification Methods (FlowCAP) challenges were established to compare the performance of these methods on two tasks: (i) mammalian cell population identification, to determine whether automated algorithms can reproduce expert manual gating and (ii) sample classification, to determine whether analysis pipelines can identify characteristics that correlate with external variables (such as clinical outcome). This analysis presents the results of the first FlowCAP challenges. Several methods performed well as compared to manual gating or external variables using statistical performance measures, which suggests that automated methods have reached a sufficient level of maturity and accuracy for reliable use in FCM data analysis.

Early Treatment with Ganciclovir to Prevent Cytomegalovirus Disease after Allogeneic Bone Marrow Transplantation

Abstract: Background. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. We conducted a controlled trial of ganciclovir for the early treatment of CMV infection in asymptomatic recipients of bone marrow transplants whose surveillance cultures for CMV became positive. Methods. Bone marrow—allograft recipients who were seropositive for CMV antibodies or who received seropositive marrow were screened for CMV excretion by culture of throat swabs, blood, urine, or bronchoalveolar-lavage fluid. In this double-blind trial, 72 patients who had marrow engraftment and were excreting virus were randomly assigned to receive either placebo or ganciclovir (5 mg per kilogram of body weight twice a day for one week, followed by 5 mg per kilogram per day) for the first 100 days after transplantation. Patients were followed for the development of biopsy-confirmed CMV disease, ganciclovir-related toxicity, and survival. Results. Between assignment to the ...

A large family of bacterial activator proteins

Abstract: At least nine different bacterial proteins belong to the LysR family. The gene sequence for one of these proteins is presented here. Six others (Escherichia coli LysR, IlvY, CysB; Salmonella typhimurium MetR; Rhizobium NodD; and Enterobacter cloacae AmpR) are known to activate other genes. Based on sequence alignments, each member of this family is predicted to have a helix-turn-helix DNA binding motif near its amino terminus. The combined evidence indicates that all nine proteins are related by common ancestry, are similarly folded, and are not detectably related to other known bacterial regulatory proteins. The DNA database searching procedure and other methods used in this study should be useful in detecting other groups of related proteins.

Resistance to CYP17A1 inhibition with abiraterone in castration resistant prostate cancer: Induction of steroidogenesis and androgen receptor splice variants

Abstract: Purpose: Abiraterone is a potent inhibitor of the steroidogenic enzyme CYP17A1 and suppresses tumor growth in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). The effectiveness of abiraterone in reducing tumor androgens is not known, nor have mechanisms contributing to abiraterone resistance been established. Experimental Design:We treated human CRPC xenografts with abiraterone and measured tumor growth, tissue androgens, androgen receptor (AR) levels, and steroidogenic gene expression vs. controls. Results: Abiraterone suppressed serum PSA levels and improved survival in two distinct CRPC xenografts: median survival of LuCaP35CR improved from 17 to 39 days (HR 3.6, p=0.0014) and LuCaP23CR from 14 to 24 days (HR 2.5, p=0.0048). Abiraterone strongly suppressed tumor androgens, with testosterone (T) decreasing from 0.49 + 0.05 to 0.07 + 0.04 pg/mg (p<0.0001), and from 0.69 + 0.11 to 0.22 + 0.08 pg/mg (p=0.002) in abirater-one-treated 23CR and 35CR, respectively, with comparable decreases in tissue DHT. Treatment was associated with increased expression of full length AR (ARFL) and trun-cated AR variants (ARFL 2.3 fold, p=0.008 and ARdel567es 2.7 fold, p=0.036 in 23CR; ARFL 3.4 fold, p=0.001 and ARV7 3.1 fold, p=0.0003 in 35CR), and increased expression of the abiraterone target CYP17A1 (~2.1 fold, p=0.0001and p=0.028 in 23CR and 35CR, respectively) and transcript changes in other enzymes modulating steroid metabolism. Conclusions: These studies indicate that abiraterone reduces CRPC growth via suppression of intratumoral androgens and that resistance to abiraterone may occur through mechanisms that include upregulation of CYP17A1, and/or induction of AR and AR splice variants that confer ligand-independent AR transactivation.