Olalekan H. Usman

Area of research

Oncology · Cancer Research

Research interest

Research topics from publications: Genomic heterogeneity in pancreatic cancer organoids and its stability with culture; Differential modulation of cellular phenotype and drug sensitivity by extracellular matrix proteins in primary and metastatic pancreatic cancer cells; Phenotypic, Genomic, and Transcriptomic Heterogeneity in a Pancreatic Cancer Cell Line; Phenotype specific nuclear lamina remodeling in hiPSC derived cardiomyocytes bearing TNNT2 sarcomeric variants. Representative work: The establishment of patient-derived pancreatic cancer organoid culture in recent years creates an exciting opportunity for researchers to perform a wide range of in vitro studies on a model that closely recapitulates the tumor. One of the outstanding question in pancreatic cancer biology is the causes and consequences of genomic heterogeneity observed in the disease. However, to use pancreatic cancer organoids as a model to study genomic variations, we need to first understand the degree of genomic heterogeneity and its stability within organoids. Here, we used single-cell whole-genome sequencing to investigate the genomic heterogeneity of two independent pancreatic cancer organoid lines, a Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is reported to be the third highest cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. PDAC is known for its high proportion of stroma, which accounts for 90% of the tumor mass. The stroma is made up of extracellular matrix (ECM) and nonmalignant cells such as inflammatory cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts, and lymphatic and blood vessels. Here, we decoupled the effects of the ECM on PDAC cell lines by culturing cells on surfaces coated with different ECM proteins. Our data show that the primary tumor-derived cell lines have different morphology depending on the ECM proteins on which they are cultured, while metastatic lesion-derived PDAC lines' m

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