Investigation of the Mesenchymal Stem Cell Compartment by Means of a Lentiviral Barcode Library.

The hematopoietic bone marrow microenvironment is formed by proliferation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The MSC compartment has been less studied than the hematopoietic stem cell compartment. To characterize the structure of the MSC compartment, it is necessary to trace the fate of distinct mesenchymal cells. To do so, mesenchymal progenitors need to be marked at the single-cell level. A method for individual marking of normal and cancer stem cells based on genetic "barcodes" has been developed for the last 10 years. Such approach has not yet been applied to MSCs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of using such barcoding strategy to mark MSCs and their descendants, colony-forming units of fibroblasts (CFU-Fs). Adherent cell layers (ACLs) of murine long-term bone marrow cultures (LTBMCs) were transduced with a lentiviral library with barcodes consisting of 32 + 3 degenerate nucleotides. Infected ACLs were suspended, and CFU-F derived clones were obtained. DNA was isolated from each individual colony, and barcodes were analyzed in marked CFU-F-derived colonies by means of conventional polymerase chain reaction and Sanger sequencing. Barcodes were identified in 154 marked colonies. All barcodes appeared to be unique: there were no two distinct colonies bearing the same barcode. It was shown that ACLs included CFU-Fs with different proliferative potential. MSCs are located higher in the hierarchy of mesenchymal progenitors than CFU-Fs, so the presented data indicate that MSCs proliferate rarely in LTBMCs. A method of stable individual marking and comparing the markers in mesenchymal progenitor cells has been developed in this work. We show for the first time that a barcoded library of lentiviruses is an effective tool for studying stromal progenitor cells.

Retroviral insertional mutagenesis in telomerase-immortalized hepatocytes identifies RIPK4 as novel tumor suppressor in human hepatocarcinogenesis.

Carcinogenesis is a multistep process involving alterations in various cellular pathways. The critical genetic events driving the evolution of primary liver cancer, specifically hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), are still poorly understood. However, telomere stabilization is acknowledged as prerequisite for cancer progression in humans. In this project, human fetal hepatocytes were utilized as a cell culture model for untransformed, proliferating human liver cells, with telomerase activation as first oncogenic hit. To elucidate critical downstream genetic events driving further transformation of immortalized liver cells, we used retroviral insertional mutagenesis as an unbiased approach to induce genetic alterations. Following isolation of hyperproliferating, provirus-bearing cell clones, we monitored cancer-associated growth properties and characterized changes toward a malignant phenotype. Three transformed clones with the ability to form colonies in soft agar were expanded. As proof-of-principle for our experimental setup, we identified a transforming insertion on chromosome 8 within the pleiomorphic adenoma gene 1 (PLAG1), resulting in a 20-fold increase in PLAG1 expression. Upregulation of PLAG1 has already been described to promote human hepatoblastoma development. In a separate clone, a transforming insertion was detected in close proximity to the receptor-interacting serine-threonine kinase 4 (RIPK4) with an approximately eightfold suppression in RIPK4 expression. As validation for this currently unknown driver in hepatocarcinogenesis, we examined RIPK4 expression in human HCC samples and confirmed a significant suppression of RIPK4 in 80% of the samples. Furthermore, overexpression of RIPK4 in transformed human fetal hepatocytes resulted in an almost complete elimination of anchorage-independent growth. On the basis of these data, we propose RIPK4 as a novel putative tumor suppressor in human hepatocarcinogenesis.