Project description:Summary (abstract): The transcriptional factor MITF is a central regulator of melanocytes and plays an important role in melanoma. In melanocytes MITF regulates the transcription of large number of genes with approximately 500 genes as validated targets. Functionally, MITF target genes are quite diverse including genes involved in pigmentation, DNA damage response, mitotic regulation, and DNA replication. Considering the transcriptional regulation of genes involved in non-melanocyte specific processes and the fact that MITF is expressed across tissue types, raises the question of whether the role of MITF outside the melanocyte lineage might be underestimated. Our data shows that in the osteosarcoma cell line, significant number of genes involved in DNA replication, DNA repair and mitotic regulation are downregulated upon MITF depletion, suggesting that the protein might be vital to maintain genome stability in the cell line.
Project description:CCAR2 is a nuclear protein recently emerged as a pivotal player of the DNA damage response since it has been found involved in both apoptosis induction and DNA repair. Differently, its role in tumorigenesis and cancer progression is still elusive. In our studies we found that CCAR2 depletion impairs the proliferation of human cancer cell lines, but leaves unaffected the growth of normal immortalized cells. To better investigate this point we performed a genome wide gene expression analyses in U2OS and BJ-hTERT depleted of CCAR2 and we found that loss of this protein causes the deregulation of genes implicated in the AKT pathway specifically in U2OS cells, but not in BJ-hTERT. In accordance with these results we found a reduction in AKT activation in all the tested cancer cell lines depleted of CCAR2, but not in the normal ones. The defective activation of AKT is caused by the upregulation of TRB3 gene in cancer cells depleted of CCAR2 and finally results in the reduction of GSK3β phosphorylation, prevention of G1/S transition and inhibition of cancer cell growth.
Project description:MITF plays critical role in development and differentiation of melanocytes and in the context of melanoma, as a lineage survival oncogene. Given its crucial role in melanoma biology, it is very difficult to generate complete knock-out (KO) of MITF and in our hands, those that were generated appear to behave differently than the effect observed using siRNA mediated knock-down, possibly indicative of selection. In order to overcome the limitation of the transient effect of siRNA and study the effect of MITF depletion over a longer period of time, we carried out transcriptomic analyses of Doxycycline inducible shMITF knock down after 8 days in 2 melanoma cell lines MeWo (CVCL_0445) and SkMel 28 (CVCL_0526)
Project description:To identify target genes regulated by ALKBH5 in osteosarcoma, we silenced the expression of ALKBH5 in osteosarcoma cell line-U2OS and tested its effect on U2OS transcriptome.
Project description:CRISPR screen: U2OS or U2OS p53KO cells expressing Cas9 were transduced with a whole-genome library of CRISPR sgRNAs, then treated with either DMSO or etoposide. Differential sgRNA abundances were calculated for each condition and used to determine the effect of each single gene knockout on fitness and the drug-induced death rate. RNA-Seq: U2OS or U2OS p53KO cells were cultured with either DMSO or etoposide for 48 hours, and then U2OS cells were incubated in this conditioned media for 8 hours. RNA was collected and use to observe differential expression changes between conditions.
Project description:We identified a novel germline mutation of the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF - E318K). This mutation was found to be present in numerous melanoma families, as well as the general population, where its association with melanoma has a significant effect. We determined the effect of the E318K mutation on global MITF target gene transcription. We developed a tetracycline-inducible system for expression of wild type MITF or the E318K variant in melanoma cell lines with constitutively low or undetectable levels of endogenous MITF (HT144 and C32). We examined whole-genome expression profiles in these cells following induction of either wild-type or E318K MITF for 48 hours. Analysis suggests that the MITF E318K mutant exhibits differential transcriptional activity against some, though not all, target genes. Expression profiling by array