L’amélioration constante du pronostic des pathologies cancéreuses est le fruit des progrès réalisés dans leur prévention, leur dépistage, leur diagnostic et leur traitement. Malgré l’avènement récent des thérapies ciblées, la chimiothérapie conventionnelle reste souvent le seul recours pour des patients atteints de cancer non opérable ou non éligibles pour ces thérapeutiques novatrices. Certaines chimiothérapies conventionnelles (anthracyclines et oxaliplatine notamment) ont la capacité d’entrainer une mort des cellules tumorales dont les caractéristiques permettent d’induire une réponse immunitaire antitumorale efficace. Cette réponse immunitaire antitumorale spécifique agirait en synergie avec l’effet cytotoxique direct de ces drogues, participant ainsi à leur efficacité. La réponse immunitaire antitumorale induite par la chimiothérapie dépend de plusieurs mécanismes moléculaires et cellulaires clefs identifiés récemment. L’induction d’un stress du réticulum endoplasmique (RE) est à l’origine de l’exposition d’une protéine chaperonne résidente du RE, la calréticuline (CRT), à la surface des cellules mourantes, servant alors de signal de phagocytose pour les cellules dendritiques. La libération dans le milieu extracellulaire de signaux de danger est également essentielle : la protéine nucléaire High Mobility Group Box 1 (HMGB1) sert ainsi de ligand pour le Toll-like récepteur 4 (TLR4), présent à la surface des cellules dendritiques et son activation favorise l’apprêtement et la présentation des antigènes tumoraux aux lymphocytes T cytotoxiques. L’adénosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) est également libéré par les cellules tumorales, entrainant l’activation des récepteurs purinergiques P2RX7 présents à la surface des cellules dendritiques, activant l’inflammasome NLRP3 et entrainant la libération d’IL-1 par les cellules dendritiques, favorisant alors l’orientation de la réponse immunitaire vers une réponse de type TH1 et la production d’interféron  par les lymphocytes T cytotoxiques. Dans ce travail, nous avons cherché à comparer la capacité de deux drogues issues d’une même classe de chimiothérapie, les sels de platine, à induire une mort cellulaire immunogène des cellules tumorales. Grace à des expériences in vitro et in vivo (modèles murins de vaccination antitumorale et de chimiothérapie sur tumeurs établies), nous avons pu montrer que l’oxaliplatine (OXP), contrairement au cisplatine (CDDP), avait la capacité d’induire une mort immunogène des cellules de cancer colique et que cette différence intra-classe dépendait de la capacité respective de ces deux drogues à entrainer un des phénomènes clés de l’induction d’une mort cellulaire immunogène, l’exposition de la CRT à la surface des cellules tumorales mourantes. Nous avons également pu montrer que l’induction d’une mort cellulaire immunogène des cellules de cancer colique par l’oxaliplatine avait une relevance clinique chez l’homme, l’existence d’un polymorphisme perte-de-fonction du gène tlr4 affectant le pronostic (survie sans progression) de patients traités par chimiothérapie pour un cancer colique métastatique. Par la suite, nous avons mis au point des biosondes permettant d’étudier à grande échelle, à l’aide d’une plateforme de vidéo-microscopie automatisée, la capacité de différentes drogues à induire les différents phénomènes clefs de la mort cellulaire immunogène des cellules tumorales (exposition de la CRT, libération d’HMGB1 et d’ATP). Nous avons ainsi pu montrer que la correction pharmaceutique du défaut d’activation d’un stress du réticulum endoplasmique par le cisplatine permettait de restaurer l’immunogénicité de la mort cellulaire induite par cette chimiothérapie. Ces résultats ouvrent la voie à la découverte de nouvelles molécules susceptibles, à elles seules ou en association à d’autres thérapies connues, d’améliorer le pronostic des néoplasies. / The steady improvement of cancer prognosis is the result of progress in cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment. Despite the recent advent of targeted therapies, conventional chemotherapy often remains the only solution for patients with non-operable cancer or not eligible for these novel therapies.Some conventional chemotherapy (including anthracyclines and oxaliplatin) has the ability to cause tumor cells death with characteristics able to induce an effective antitumor immune response. This specific antitumor immune response would be synergistic with the direct cytotoxic effect of these drugs and contribute to their efficacy. The antitumor immune response induced by chemotherapy depends on several key cellular and molecular mechanisms recently identified. The induction of an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is necessary for the exposure of calreticulin (CRT), an ER-resident chaperone protein, on the surface of dying cells, then acting as a phagocytosis signal for dendritic cells. Release of danger signals into the extracellular medium is also essential. The nuclear protein High Mobility Group Box 1 (HMGB1) is a ligand of the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) on the surface of dendritic cells. TLR4 activation promotes the processing of tumor antigens and their presentation to cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Adenosine-5'-triphosphate (ATP) is also released by tumor cells, leading to the activation of the purinergic receptors P2RX7 expressed on the surface of dendritic cells, activating the NLRP3 inflammasome and causing the release of IL-1β by dendritic cells, while promoting the orientation of the immune response towards a TH1 response and the production of γ-interferon by cytotoxic T lymphocytes.In this work, we aimed to compare the ability of two drugs of a same class of chemotherapy, the platinum derivates oxaliplatin (OXP) and cisplatin (CDDP), to induce immunogenic death of tumor cells. Thanks to in vitro and in vivo experiments (models of tumor vaccination and chemotherapy on established tumors in mice), we showed that OXP, in contrast to CDDP, has the ability to induce immunogenic death of colon cancer cells. This intra-class difference depends on the ability of each drug to cause one of the key phenomena of immunogenic cell death: the induction of the exposure of the CRT to the surface of dying tumor cells. We could also show that the induction of immunogenic death of colon cancer cells by OXP had clinical relevance in humans. Indeed, the existence of a loss-of-function polymorphism of tlr4 affects the prognosis (PFS) of patients treated with OXP-based chemotherapy regimen for a metastatic colorectal cancer. Subsequently, we developed biosensors to study the ability of different drugs to induce key phenomena of cell death immunogen tumor cells (CRT exposure, HMGB1 and ATP release) using high-content screening by an automated video-microscopy platform. We showed that a pharmaceutical correction of the inability of cisplatin to induce an endoplasmic reticulum stress could restore the immunogenicity of cisplatin-induced tumor cell death. These results open the way to the discovery of new molecules that, alone or in combination with other known therapies, could improve the prognosis of cancer.

Im Gegensatz zur den monomeren Leaderpeptidasen der bakteriellen Plasmamembran bestehen die eukaryotischen Signalpeptidasen der ER-Membran aus einem heteromeren Protein-Komplex. In der Hefe S. cerevisiae setzt sich die Signalpeptidase aus den vier Membranproteinen Sec11p, Spc1p, Spc2p und Spc3p zusammen. Neben der zur prokaryontischen Leaderpeptidase homologen Untereinheit Sec11p wird auch Spc3p benötigt um die Spaltungsfunktion in der Zelle auszuüben. Die Deletion von SPC3 führt zu einer lethalen Akkumulation von sekretorischen Vorstufenproteinen in vivo, sowie zum Verlust der Spaltungsaktivität in vitro. Spc1p und Spc2p sind nicht essentiell für die Hefe. Für Spc2p konnte jedoch gezeigt werden, daß die Signalpeptidase über die Spc2p Untereinheit mit den b-Untereinheiten des Sec61-Komplexes und des Ssh1-Komplexes interagiert. Vermutlich wird es so dem Komplex ermöglicht, während des Translokationsprozesses engen Kontakt zu der im Translokationskanal befindlichen Signalsequenz aufzunehmen. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wurden neue Komponenten aus der ER Membran von Säugern aufgereinigt. Dabei wurde ein ribosomenfreier Sec61-Komplex entdeckt, der mit zwei weiteren Membranproteinen assoziiert ist. Die beiden neuen Membranproteine weisen Homologien zu essentiellen Untereinheiten des postranslational aktiven Sec-Komplexes der Hefe S. cerevisiae auf. Die Rolle des neu entdeckten Säugerkomplexes während der Proteintranslokation ist noch unbekannt, in der Arbeit werden mögliche Funktionen des Komplexes diskutiert. / In contrast to the monomer leaderpeptidase of the prokaryotic plasmamembrane, the eukaryotic signalpeptidase of the ER-membrane is a heteromer protein complex. In yeast the signalpeptidase consist of the four subunits Sec11p, Spc1p, Spc2p and Spc3p. Additional to Sec11p also Spc3p is essential for cell growth and cell life. The depletion of Spc3p cause lethal accumulation of precursor proteins in vivo and lost of cleavage activity in vitro. Spc1p and Spc2p are not essential for the cell. We show here, that the Spc2p subunit interacts with the ß-subunits of the Sec61- and the Ssh1-complex. These data implicate that Spc2p facilitates the interactions between different components of the translocation site. In yeast, efficient protein transport across the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane may occurco-translationally or post-translationally. The latter process is mediated by a membrane protein complex that consists of the Sec61p complex and the Sec62p-Sec63p subcomplex. In contrast, in mammalian cells protein translocation is almost exclusively co-translational. This transport depends on the Sec61 complex, which is homologous to the yeast Sec61p complex and has been identified in mammals as a ribosome-bound pore-forming membrane protein complex. We report here the existence of ribosome-free mammalian Sec61 complexes that associate with two ubiquitous proteins of the ER membrane. According to primary sequence analysis both proteins display homology to the yeast proteins Sec62p and Sec63p and are therefore named Sec62 and Sec63, respectively. The probable function of the mammalian Sec61-Sec62-Sec63 complex is discussed with respect to its abundance in ER membranes, which, in contrast to yeast ER membranes, apparently lack efficient post-translational translocation activity.

No description available.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2016-08-18T13:22:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 BARBARA MARIOTTO BORDIN.pdf: 616329 bytes, checksum: 1c5d8ba717c3f2049b989263d9efa19f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T13:22:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BARBARA MARIOTTO BORDIN.pdf: 616329 bytes, checksum: 1c5d8ba717c3f2049b989263d9efa19f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-16 / Oestrogen Receptor (ER ) gene plays an important role in the regulation of fertility in both males and females. The RsaI polymorphism in exon 5 of ER has been shown to be associated with male infertility in Caucasian patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of this polymorphism in the etiology of idiopathic male infertility and to correlate with smoking and ethylism habits, xenobiotic contact and mumps. We analyzed 287 Brazilian men, including 161 infertile and 126 fertile men to evaluate the association of RsaI polymorphism in male infertility. The RsaI variant alleles (AA, AG or GG) of the patients were determined by allele-specific polymerase chain reaction. Compared with a control group (normozoospermic men), the frequency of the heterozygous RsaI AG-genotype was four times higher in infertile men (9,94 vs. 2,38%; P = 0,01), five times higher in azoospermic men (11,36 vs. 2,38%; P = 0,02) and seven times higher in teratozoospermic men ( 17,79 vs. 2,38%; P = 0,001). The frequency of the heterozygous RsaI AG-genotype was three times higher in infertile smokers (23,8 vs. 7,4%; P = 0,038) compared with infertile nonsmokers and nine times higher in azoospermic smokers (66,7 vs. 6,9%; P = 0,035), compared with azoospermic nonsmokers. The RsaI polymorphism in the ER gene may have modulating effects on human spermatogenesis. There seems to be consistent association between RsaI polymorphism and smoking habits in infertile men. / O gene Receptor de estrogênio (RE ) desempenha um papel importante na regulação da fertilidade tanto em homens e mulheres. O polimorfismo RsaI no éxon 5 do RE tem-se mostrado associada com infertilidade masculina em caucasianos. O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar a freqüência deste polimorfismo na etiologia da infertilidade idiopática masculina e sua correlação com o tabagismo, etilismo, contato com xenobióticos e caxumba. Nós analisamos 287 brasileiros, incluindo 161 inférteis e 126 homens férteis para avaliar a associação do polimorfismo RsaI do gene RE com a infertilidade masculina. Os alelos variantes do polimorfismo RsaI (AA, AG ou GG) foram determinadas pela reação em cadeia da polimerase alelo-específica. Em comparação com um grupo controle (homens normozoospérmicos), a freqüência do genótipo heterozigoto RsaI-AG foi quatro vezes maior em homens inférteis (9,94 vs. 2,38%, P = 0,01), cinco vezes maior em azoospérmicos (11,36 vs. 2,38% , P = 0,02) e sete vezes maior em teratozoospérmicos (17,79 vs. 2,38%, P = 0,001). A freqüência do genótipo heterozigoto RsaI-AG foi três vezes maior nos fumantes inférteis (23,8 vs. 7,4%, P = 0,038) em comparação com não fumantes inférteis e nove vezes maior em fumantes azoospérmicos (66,7 vs. 6,9%, P = 0,035), comparado com não fumantes azoospérmicos. O polimorfismo RsaI no gene RE pode ter efeitos sobre a modulação da espermatogênese humana. Parece haver uma associação consistente entre o polimorfismo RsaI e tabagismo em homens inférteis.

Ca2+ is a universal intracellular messenger that regulates many cellular responses. Most cells express inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3R) that mediate Ca2+ release from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) when they bind IP3 produced after activation of cell-surface receptors. Vertebrate genomes encode three closely related subtypes of IP3R (IP3R1-3). High-resolution optical analyses have revealed a hierarchy of IP3-evoked Ca2+ signals that are thought to arise from the co-regulation of IP3Rs by IP3 and Ca2+. The smallest events ('blips') report the opening of single IP3Rs, Ca2+ 'puffs' report the almost simultaneous opening of a few clustered IP3Rs, and as stimulus intensities increase further Ca2+ signals propagate regeneratively as Ca2+ waves. The aim of this study was to establish whether all three IP3R subtypes can generate Ca2+ puffs. I first used a haploid cell line (HAP1 cells) to generate, using CRISPR/Cas9, a line lacking all endogenous IP3Rs. However, for analyses of Ca2+ puffs, I used HEK cells that had been engineered, using CRISPR/Cas9 to disrupt endogenous genes, to express single IP3R subtypes. Local Ca2+ signals evoked by flash-photolysis of caged- IP3 were recorded using Cal520 and total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy in human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells. The Flika algorithm was used, and validated, for automated detection of Ca2+ puffs and to measure their properties. IP3 evoked Ca2+ puffs in wild-type HEK cells and in cells expressing single IP3R subtypes. In wild-type cells, the Ca2+ signals invariably propagated regeneratively to give global increases in cytosolic [Ca2+]. This occurred less frequently in cells expressing single IP3R subtypes, commensurate with their lower overall levels of IP3R expression. The properties of the Ca2+ puffs, including their rise and decay times, durations, the size of the unitary fluorescence steps as channels closed channel during the falling phase, and the estimated number of active IP3Rs in each Ca2+ puff, were broadly similar in each of the four cell lines. The latter observation suggests that despite lower overall levels of IP3R expression (~30%) in cells with single subtypes relative to WT cells, there is a mechanism that ensures formation of similarly sized IP3R clusters. The only significant differences between cell lines were the slower kinetics of the Ca2+ puffs evoked by IP3R2, which may suggest dissociation of IP3 from its receptor contributes to the termination of Ca2+ puffs. My results demonstrate, for the first time, that all three IP3R subtypes can generate Ca2+ puffs. I conclude that Ca2+ puffs are fundamental building blocks of all IP3-evoked Ca2+ signals.

P53 est un facteur de transcription qui se décline, chez l’homme, la souris ou la drosophile, en plusieurs isoformes. Chez la drosophile deux isoformes ont été caractérisées : la forme canonique Dp53 ; et une forme tronquée, D∆Np53, dont le domaine de transactivation est incomplet. Une des questions encore peu étudiée, concerne les mécanismes par lesquels p53 régule une grande variété de réponses cellulaires lors d’un stress. Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons étudié le rôle des isoformes de p53 dans la régulation de deux mécanismes antagoniste en lien avec la maladie de Parkinson (MP) : l’autophagie et l’apoptose en réponse à un stress délétère et un stress hormétique du système nerveux. Nous avons montré que les drosophiles portant une mutation nulle de p53 sont plus sensibles aux effets du paraquat (fort stress oxydant, modèle chimique de la maladie de Parkinson). En absence de p53, ce stress cause une forte inhibition de l’initiation et du flux de l’autophagie accompagné d’une augmentation des niveaux de caspases et de la mortalité. L’augmentation de la mortalité et des niveaux de caspases est similaire chez des mutants de l’autophagie pour lesquels le flux d’autophagie est constitutivement altéré. D’autre part, nous avons montré que les deux isoformes de p53 (Dp53 et D∆Np53) régulent différemment l’apoptose et l’autophagie dans les neurones photorécepteurs de drosophile : l’isoforme Dp53 présente un flux autophagique fonctionnel retardant la neurodégénérescence, tandis que, l’isoforme D∆Np53 inhibe le flux d’autophagie via l’activation des caspases Dcp1, Drice et Dronc. Enfin, nous avons établi un lien entre p53 et le stress du réticulum endoplasmique (RE). Dans un premier temps nous avons montré qu’un stress modéré du RE (pré-conditionnement) a un effet protecteur dépendant de l’activation de l’autophagie dans différents modèles de la MD. Ensuite, nous avons montré que les trois banches de la réponse au stress du RE (IRE1, Atf6 et PERK) sont impliquées dans cet effet protecteur. Enfin, nous avons montré que les drosophiles mutantes pour p53 perdent l’effet protecteur du pré-conditionnement. L’ensemble de nos résultats apporte de nouveaux éléments sur l’aspect multifonctionnel de p53 en réponse à un stress dans le système nerveux. Via ses multiples isoformes, p53 peut activer deux réponses antagonistes : l’autophagie et l’apoptose, permettant aux cellules une réponse flexible face à une situation de stress. La régulation de l’autophagie par p53 est protectrice et apparait comme étant une fonction ancestrale de p53. / P53 is a tumor suppressor gene, which has been showed to regulate several cellular pathways. Upon stress, p53 triggers multiple cellular pathways including DNA repair system, cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and autophagy. Thus, p53 is involved in both cellular protection and death pathways. One of the major questions is to understand how a single protein can promote so many different pathways. Here I address the putative role of p53 isoforms in the regulation of autophagy and apoptosis and their role in neuron survival in the context of Parkinson’s disease (PD). We show that p53 mutants are more susceptible to paraquat toxicity (chemical model of PD), indicating a protective role for p53. We also found that Atg8 mutant, which display an impaired autophagy, behave similarly to p53 upon paraquat treatment. In addition, we show that p53 is required for the activation of autophagy with a functional autophagy flux upon paraquat treatment and that lack of p53 or Atg8 results in an accumulation of activated caspases after paraquat treatment. Moreover, we found that autophagy and apoptosis were differentially regulated by different p53 isoforms. The Dp53 (p53B) isoform induced protective autophagy, whereas the D∆Np53 (p53A) isoform inhibited autophagy by activating the caspases Dronc, Drice and Dcp-1 in differentiated neurons. Our results demonstrate that a combination of the differential use of p53 isoforms and the antagonism between apoptosis and autophagy favors the generation of an appropriate p53 biological response to stress. In addition, we have defined in vitro and in vivo experimental conditions in which the activation of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) does not induce cell or organism lethality but rather promotes an adaptive response that protects from apoptotic stimuli. We show that this mild activation, known as ER-preconditioning is protective in several models of PD in an autophagy-dependent fashion. We showed that the three branches of the UPR are involved in the protective effect induced by ER-preconditioning. We then demonstrated that p53 is necessary to mediate the protection by ER-preconditioning suggesting that p53 may be a key factor in the integration of stress responses. Together our results reveal new aspects of the multi-functionality of p53. Activation of the antagonist pathways: autophagy and apoptosis by p53 isoforms, leads to flexible and adaptive response to stress. In addition, our results suggest that the regulation of autophagy by p53 is a ancestral protective function of p53.

Crohn’s disease (CD) affects about 780,000 people in the United States alone, and it is estimated that 6-15 per 100,000 persons will receive a diagnosis of this disease each year. There currently is no cure for Crohn’s disease, and available medical therapies simply serve to alleviate the inflammation. This does not help treat fibrostenosis that Crohn’s disease patients may develop, which can only be treated surgically. Finding alternatives to treat CD requires an understanding of mechanisms at the biochemical level. In this thesis, we attempted to gain a better understanding of certain pathways found to be active in Crohn’s disease-affected ileal smooth muscle cells. We found an upregulation of the ER stress pathway via expression of its surrogate, the GRP78 protein. We also showed evidence that the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway, a key proliferative pathway, is linked to ER stress in these cells, and is an upstream driving force of the ER stress response. Further research on the link between the PI3K and ER stress pathways needs to be conducted, and can potentially serve as a target for therapeutics to help reduce proliferation in fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease-affected ileal smooth muscle cells.

Recently reported data demonstrate that Vav3, a Rho Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor (Rho GEF) is overexpressed in breast tumors, coexpressed with ER, necessary for proliferation in breast cancer cells, and predictive of response to neoadjuvant endocrine therapies in patients with ER+ tumors. Such data beg the question as to what roles Vav3 plays in modulation of steroid receptor activity in breast cancer and in resistance to current hormonal therapies. Using reporter assays, I provide novel evidence that Vav3 potentiates Estrogen Receptor activity and represses Androgen Receptor activity in breast cancer cells. Vav3 potentiates ligand-dependent estrogen receptor activity in the MCF-7. A truncated, constitutively active form of Vav3, caVav3 potentiates ligand dependent ER activity in both MCF-7 and T47D. Vav3 activates Rho GTPases through its GEF domain. ER potentiation by caVav3 is dependent upon GEF activity. A caVav3 mutant with defective GEF function represses basal and ligand-mediated ER activity in T47D. Although other studies have shown that Vav3 could activate various Rho GTPases, only constitutively active Rac1 mutants potentiated ER activity in both cell lines. Contrastingly, reporter assays were used to show that caVav3 inhibits ligand-mediated AR activity in the AR+ T47D cell line by both R1881 and DHT stimulation. caVav3-mediated repression of AR activity is GEF-dependent, as caVav3 GEF mutants potentiate AR activity. Constitutively active forms of Rho GTPases were found to repress AR activity to different extents, but R1881-mediated AR activity was only significantly repressed by caCdc42. My studies of the effect of androgens on AR protein by western blot show that androgens downregulate AR protein in the highly Vav3 positive T47D cell line. Previous studies have demonstrated that androgens stabilize AR protein in MCF-7, and I now provide evidence that overexpression of Vav3 or caVav3 reverses hormone-mediated AR protein stabilization in MCF-7. These data are especially relevant given recently published data that decreased AR protein levels contributed to failure of response to MPA in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Further breast cancer studies may prove Vav3 to be a potential drug target in hormone dependent, hormone independent, and metastatic disease.

No description available.

由於台灣的軟體廠商多屬中小企業，因此在軟體開發專案過程中，常受限於 時程、成本上的壓力，無法遵循標準的軟體開發流程，也無法將專案經驗累積成 為公司的知識庫。CMMI 是目前國際上被高度認同的軟體開發流程模式，對提升 軟體發展能力及改善軟體品質相當有助益，可協助組織達到降低成本、掌控開發 時程與確保品質等目標，因此本研究將以滿足CMMI 專案規劃的標準為目標，設 計專案管理的資料模型。 本研究將規劃合乎CMMI的企業專案管理資料模式，使其有系統地記錄專案在 規劃時期所產出的一些資料及文件。當進行新的專案時，藉由參考先前專案的文 件或數據，可使專案在初步估計的過程中更加的順利，透過累積專案經驗也可增 加整體專案成功的機率。 以下為本文各章節的簡介，在第一章中，將確定研究的背景、動機、及目的， 據此進行第二章的文獻探討，分析CMMI與PMBOK對專案管理各自規範的實務作 法。接著在第四章中，先將PMBOK專案規劃流程轉為資料模型，再以CMMI專案規 劃的觀點來檢驗，分析是否滿足其實務的作法。第五章將分析個案公司專案文件 與訪談的結果，最後，在第六章將對個案公司提出建議，並提出改良後的資料模 型。