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The Mediator MED23 plays opposing roles in directing smooth muscle cell and adipocyte differentiation

ABSTRACT: The Mediator complex functions as a control center orchestrating diverse signalings, gene activities, and biological processes. However, how Mediator subunits determine distinct cell fates remains to be fully elucidated. Here, we show that Mediator MED23 controls the cell fate preference that directs differentiation into smooth muscle cells (SMCs) or adipocytes. Med23-deficiency facilitates SMC differentiation but represses adipocyte differentiation from the multipotent mesenchymal stem cells. Gene profiling revealed that the presence or absence of Med23 oppositely regulates two sets of genes: the RhoA/MAL-targeted cytoskeleton/SMC genes and the Ras/ELK1 targeted growth/adipocyte genes. Mechanistically, MED23 favors ELK1-SRF binding to SMC gene promoters for repression, whereas the lack of MED23 favors MAL-SRF binding to SMC gene promoters for activation. Remarkably, the effect of MED23 on SMC differentiation can be recapitulated in zebrafish embryogenesis. Collectively, our data demonstrate the dual, opposing roles for MED23 in regulating the cytoskeleton/SMC and growth/adipocyte gene programs, suggesting its “Ying-Yang” function in directing adipogenesis vs. SMC differentiation.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE40369 | GEO | 2012/12/20

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA173867

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:K-RAS activating mutations occur frequently in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), leading to aberrant activation of Ras-MAPK signaling pathway that contributes to the malignant phenotype. However, the development of Ras-targeted therapeutics remains challenging. Here, we show that MED23, a component of the multisubunit Mediator complex that is known to integrate signaling and gene activities, is selectively important for Ras-active lung cancer. By screening a large panel of human lung cancer cell lines with or without a Ras mutation, we found that Med23 RNAi specifically inhibits the proliferation and tumorigenicity of lung cancer cells with hyperactive Ras activity. Med23-deficiency in fibroblasts selectively inhibited the oncogenic transformation induced by Ras but not by c-Myc. Transcription factor ELK1, which is phosphorylated by MAPK for relaying the Ras signaling to MED23, was also required for the Ras-driven oncogenesis. Transcriptiome analysis revealed that MED23 and ELK1 co-regulate a common set of target genes enriched in regulating cell cycle and proliferation to support the Ras-dependency. Furthermore, correlated with the strength of Ras signaling as indicated by the ELK1 phosphorylation level, MED23 was up-regulated by Ras-transformation, and was found to be overexpressed in both Ras-mutated lung cancer cell lines and primary tumor samples. Remarkably, lower Med23 expression predicts better survival in Ras-active lung cancer patients and xenograft mice. Collectively, our findings demonstrate a critical role for MED23 in enabling the 'Ras-addiction' of lung carcinogenesis, thus providing a vulnerable target for the treatment of Ras-active lung cancer. To gain a genome-wide understanding of how MED23 and ELK1 control gene expression in Ras-active lung cancer cells, we performed gene profiling experiments to analyze the transcriptomes from control, si-Med23, or si-Elk1 A549 cells. The si-Ctrl, si-Med23 and si-Elk1 A549 cells were cultured in the normal condition. Then the cells were harvested for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. The analysis contain 9 samples. si-Ctrl cells have three replicates (si-Ctrl#1, si-Ctrl#2 and si-Ctrl#3), and the si-Med23 or si-Elk1 group contains three different cell lines that harbor three different RNAi oligos against Med23 or Elk1 (si-Med23A, B, C and si-Elk1A, B, C).

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The Mediator MED23 plays opposing roles in directing smooth muscle cell and adipocyte differentiation

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