RESUMEN
The activities of DNA-binding transcription factors, such as the multi-zinc-finger protein ZBTB18 (also known as RP58, or ZNF238), are essential to coordinate mammalian neurodevelopment, including the birth and radial migration of newborn neurons within the fetal brain. In humans, the majority of disease-associated missense mutations in ZBTB18 lie within the DNA-binding zinc-finger domain and are associated with brain developmental disorder, yet the molecular mechanisms explaining their role in disease remain unclear. To address this, we developed in silico models of ZBTB18, bound to DNA, and discovered that half of the missense variants map to residues (Asn461, Arg464, Glu486) predicted to be essential to sequence-specific DNA contact, whereas others map to residues (Leu434, Tyr447, Arg495) with limited contributions to DNA binding. We studied pathogenic variants to residues with close (N461S) and limited (R495G) DNA contact and found that each bound DNA promiscuously, displayed altered transcriptional regulatory activity in vitro, and influenced the radial migration of newborn neurons in vivo in different ways. Taken together, our results suggest that altered transcriptional regulation could represent an important pathological mechanism for ZBTB18 missense variants in brain developmental disease.
Asunto(s)
Corteza Cerebral/embriología , Corteza Cerebral/metabolismo , Mutación Missense , Neuronas/metabolismo , Proteínas Represoras/genética , Dedos de Zinc/genética , Animales , Proteínas de Unión al ADN/química , Proteínas de Unión al ADN/metabolismo , Regulación de la Expresión Génica , Células HEK293 , Células HeLa , Humanos , Ratones , Modelos Moleculares , Unión Proteica , Conformación Proteica , Dominios y Motivos de Interacción de Proteínas , Proteínas Represoras/química , Relación Estructura-ActividadRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Metastatic disease is largely resistant to therapy and accounts for almost all cancer deaths. Myeloid cell leukemia-1 (MCL-1) is an important regulator of cell survival and chemo-resistance in a wide range of malignancies, and thus its inhibition may prove to be therapeutically useful. METHODS: To examine whether targeting MCL-1 may provide an effective treatment for breast cancer, we constructed inducible models of BIMs2A expression (a specific MCL-1 inhibitor) in MDA-MB-468 (MDA-MB-468-2A) and MDA-MB-231 (MDA-MB-231-2A) cells. RESULTS: MCL-1 inhibition caused apoptosis of basal-like MDA-MB-468-2A cells grown as monolayers, and sensitized them to the BCL-2/BCL-XL inhibitor ABT-263, demonstrating that MCL-1 regulated cell survival. In MDA-MB-231-2A cells, grown in an organotypic model, induction of BIMs2A produced an almost complete suppression of invasion. Apoptosis was induced in such a small proportion of these cells that it could not account for the large decrease in invasion, suggesting that MCL-1 was operating via a previously undetected mechanism. MCL-1 antagonism also suppressed local invasion and distant metastasis to the lung in mouse mammary intraductal xenografts. Kinomic profiling revealed that MCL-1 antagonism modulated Src family kinases and their targets, which suggested that MCL-1 might act as an upstream modulator of invasion via this pathway. Inhibition of MCL-1 in combination with dasatinib suppressed invasion in 3D models of invasion and inhibited the establishment of tumors in vivo. CONCLUSION: These data provide the first evidence that MCL-1 drives breast cancer cell invasion and suggests that MCL-1 antagonists could be used alone or in combination with drugs targeting Src kinases such as dasatinib to suppress metastasis.
Asunto(s)
Antineoplásicos/farmacología , Neoplasias de la Mama/metabolismo , Neoplasias de la Mama/patología , Dasatinib/farmacología , Resistencia a Antineoplásicos , Proteína 1 de la Secuencia de Leucemia de Células Mieloides/antagonistas & inhibidores , Inhibidores de Proteínas Quinasas/farmacología , Animales , Neoplasias de la Mama/tratamiento farmacológico , Neoplasias de la Mama/mortalidad , Muerte Celular/efectos de los fármacos , Muerte Celular/genética , Línea Celular Tumoral , Movimiento Celular/efectos de los fármacos , Movimiento Celular/genética , Modelos Animales de Enfermedad , Femenino , Expresión Génica , Humanos , Inmunohistoquímica , Ratones , Ratones Noqueados , Mutación , Proteína 1 de la Secuencia de Leucemia de Células Mieloides/genética , Proteína 1 de la Secuencia de Leucemia de Células Mieloides/metabolismo , Invasividad Neoplásica , Metástasis de la Neoplasia , Carga Tumoral/efectos de los fármacos , Ensayos Antitumor por Modelo de XenoinjertoRESUMEN
Disruptions to neuronal mRNA translation are hypothesized to underlie human neurodevelopmental syndromes. Notably, the mRNA translation re-initiation factor DENR is a regulator of eukaryotic translation and cell growth, but its mammalian functions are unknown. Here, we report that Denr influences the migration of murine cerebral cortical neurons in vivo with its binding partner Mcts1, whereas perturbations to Denr impair the long-term positioning, dendritic arborization, and dendritic spine characteristics of postnatal projection neurons. We characterized de novo missense mutations in DENR (p.C37Y and p.P121L) detected in two unrelated human subjects diagnosed with brain developmental disorder to find that each variant impairs the function of DENR in mRNA translation re-initiation and disrupts the migration and terminal branching of cortical neurons in different ways. Thus, our findings link human brain disorders to impaired mRNA translation re-initiation through perturbations in DENR (OMIM: 604550) function in neurons.
