Journal of Stem Cell Research & Therapy

Evaluation of clonal origin of malignant mesothelioma

4^th International Conference and Exhibition on Cell & Gene Therapy

August 10-12, 2015 London, UK

Sabahattin Comertpay

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Stem Cell Res Ther

Abstract:

The hypothesis that most cancers are of monoclonal origin is often accepted as a fact in the scientific community. This dogma
arose decades ago, primarily from the study of hematopoietic malignancies and sarcomas, which originate as monoclonal
tumors. The possible clonal origin of malignant mesothelioma (MM) has not been investigated. Asbestos inhalation induces a
chronic inflammatory response at sites of fiber deposition that may lead to malignant transformation after 30-50 years latency. As
many mesothelial cells are simultaneously exposed to asbestos fibers and to asbestos-induced inflammation, it may be possible
that more than one cell undergoes malignant transformation during the process that gives rise to MM, and result in a polyclonal
malignancy. To investigate the clonality patterns of MM, we used the HUMARA (Human Androgen Receptor) assay to examine
16 biopsies from 14 women MM patients. Out of 16 samples, one was non-informative due to skewed Lyonization in its normal
adjacent tissue. Fourteen out of the 15 informative samples revealed two electrophoretically distinct methylated HUMARA
alleles, the Corrected Allele Ratio (CR) calculated on the allele peak areas indicating polyclonal origin MM. Our results show that
MM originate as polyclonal tumors and suggest that the carcinogenic “field effect” of mineral fibers leads to several premalignant
clones that give rise to these polyclonal malignancies.

Biography :

Sabahattin Comertpay has completed his PhD from University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and is currently doing his Postdoctoral work at Middle East Technical
University. He has published six papers some of which were published in high-impact journals, such as Nature Genetics and PNAS. He was recently by Scientific
and Technological Research Council of Turkey for a project to investigate the apoptotic effects of capsaicin on malignant mesothelioma cell cultures.