Project description:While diabetes incidence is gradually rising worldwide, novel therapeutical approaches are required in the search for a replacement of dysfunctional endocrine tissue, especially beta-cells. A promising potential lies in direct cellular reprogramming of similar cell types sharing common multipotent progenitors. With the knowledge of molecular mechanisms determining the endocrine cell fate commitment and endocrine lineage differentiation, other endocrine cells contained within the islets of Langerhans or closely related cells could be trans- or dedifferentiated either in situ or in vitro with their subsequent transplantation into the patient. NEUROD1 is a transcription factor situated on the base of the gene regulatory network of the developing endocrine precursors, directly downstream of endocrine lineage master regulator NEUROG3. While NEUROG3 initiates a rapid cascade of chromatin reorganization in numerous bivalent promoters resulting in spatiotemporal gene expression leading to differentiation of all endocrine cell subtypes from pancreatic multipotent progenitors, the role of NEUROD1 has yet to be clarified. Notably, NEUROD1 can induce neuronal program through pioneering and chromatin remodelling in other cell types. In this study, we performed advanced molecular and phenotypic analyses in early endocrine-specific Neurod1-deficient mouse model, including RNA and CUT&Tag sequencing and lightsheet microscopy, to gain insight into the NEUROD1-regulated transcription network driving endocrine lineage cell fate commitment. Besides a postnatal diabetic phenotype, disrupted endocrine differentiation and associated altered islet architecture, we observed an apparent elevation in the non-endocrine gene expression pattern and uncovered alterations in the epigenetic landscape of characteristic genes, specifically in the H3K4me3 and H3K27me3 distribution. Therefore, we provide evidence that NEUROD1 is critical player responsible for the establishment of the endocrine cell identity, which further affects endocrine development and may serve as a potent proendocrine reprogramming driver.

Project description:Uncontrolled Transforming growth factor-beta (TGFβ) signaling promotes aggressive metastatic properties in late-stage breast cancers. However, how TGFβ-mediated cues are directed to induce late-stage tumorigenic events is poorly understood, particularly given that TGFβ has clear tumor suppressing activity in other contexts. Here we demonstrate that the transcriptional regulators TAZ and YAP (TAZ/YAP), key effectors of the Hippo pathway, are necessary to promote and maintain TGFβ-induced tumorigenic phenotypes in breast cancer cells. Interactions between TAZ/YAP, TGFβ-activated SMAD2/3, and TEAD transcription factors reveal convergent roles for these factors in the nucleus. Genome-wide expression analyses indicate that TAZ/YAP, TEADs and TGFβ-induced signals coordinate a specific pro-tumorigenic transcriptional program. Importantly, genes cooperatively regulated by TAZ/YAP, TEAD, and TGFβ, such as the novel targets NEGR1 and UCA1, are necessary for maintaining tumorigenic activity in metastatic breast cancer cells. Nuclear TAZ/YAP also cooperate with TGFβ signaling to promote phenotypic and transcriptional changes in non-tumorigenic cells to overcome TGFβ repressive effects. Our work thus identifies crosstalk between nuclear TAZ/YAP and TGFβ signaling in breast cancer cells, revealing novel insight into late-stage disease-driving mechanisms. Expression profiling was conducted following the repression of the transcriptional regulators TAZ and YAP (TAZ/YAP), the TEAD family of transcription factors (TEAD1/2/3/4), or the TGFb signaling pathway (with SB-431542, an inhibitor of the TBRI recpeptor) in human MDA-MB-231-LM2 breast cancer cells treated with TGFβ1. Human MDA-MB-231-LM2-4 breast cancer cells were transfected with control siRNA, or siRNAs targeting TAZ/YAP or all four TEADs and were treated 24 hours later with 500pM TGFβ1 or 5mM SB-431542 for an additional 24 hours. Total RNA was isolated and twelve microarrays in total were performed, with each condition carried out three times on separate days. The Boston University Microarray Core generated the data using the Affymetrix Human Gene 1.0 St Array.

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Time course analysis of the effect of reseeding on laminin-411 vs fibronectin on gene expression in in vitro differentiated pancreatic progenitor cells.

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