Ming Wai Lau Centre for Reparative Medicine

Half of advanced stage lung cancer patients can survive longer than seven years if their tumors are driven by ALK rearrangement and treated by ALK inhibitors, but the remaining half cannot. Zongli Zheng Lab has used deep RNA sequencing, conducted clinical and in vitro experiments to understand the reasons for the poor responses in the remaining half. The study revealed that intratumoral EML4-ALK isoforms may predict the efficacy of targeted therapy in ALK-rearranged NSCLC. Temporal changes of intratumoral fusion isoforms may result from differential selection pressures that a drug might have on one isoform over another. Future therapeutic approaches may be directed to treat alternative RNA splicing-rendered heterogeneity and tumor resistance.

In this study, The Lanner lab reveals an unexpected role of the amnion for induction of mesoderm during gastrulation. Through transcriptional profiling of in vitro cultured non-human primate (NHP) blastocysts, they identify that ISL1 is a primate specific marker of the amnion and that genetic targeting through CRISPR/Cas9 disrupts mesoderm formation. The study provides a detailed transcriptional atlas of the implantation stage primate embryo from day 10-14 which can be easily browsed at https://www.nhp-embryo.net

Regeneration of the central nervous system (CNS) in adult mammals is limited by scar tissue, contributing to the long-lasting functional deficits observed after injury. In their recent publication, Christian Göritz and co-workers show that fibrotic scar tissue forms after different kind of lesions in spinal cord and brain in mice and humans. The authors compared 10 different lesion models in mice and 4 human CNS pathologies and found that in all cases, in which fibrotic tissue is formed, a discrete subset of perivascular cells (called type A pericytes) is the main source. The Lab suggested that type A pericyte-derived fibrosis could be explored as therapeutic target to improve recovery after CNS lesions. 

The Göritz Lab has shown that induced adult neurogenesis by striatal astrocytes leads to the generation of glutamatergic neurons that functionally integrate into the adult striatal circuitry. The integration of glutamatergic neurons provides a local source of excitation to the striatum that could potentially compensate for reduced excitatory input due to aging or disease.

Sijie Chen and her group have developed a novel membrane-targeting photosensitizer (DTTPB) with aggregation-induced emission characteristics for efficient photodynamic inactivation of human coronaviruses upon white-light irradiation. This manuscript is highlighted as the back cover of Small, issue 30, 2021.