Project description:PBRM1 was found to be mutated in a high percentage of clear cell RCCs. We performed knockdown of PBRM1 via siRNA and compared with scrambled control in three different RCC cell lines. PBRM1 siRNA and mock treated cell lines were normalized together with 'hypoxic' clear cell renal tumors and normal renal tissue samples from GSE17818.
Project description:PBRM1 was found to be mutated in a high percentage of clear cell RCCs. We performed knockdown of PBRM1 via siRNA and compared with scrambled control in three different RCC cell lines.
Project description:PBRM1 is the 2nd-most frequently inactivated gene in clear cell renal cell cancer (RCC) but the oncogenic mechanisms, and hence methods for correction, are unclear. PBRM1 is a subunit of the PBAF coactivator complex that transcription factors use to reposition nucleosomes (‘open chromatin’) for gene activation. We therefore looked for transcription factors that recruit endogenous PBRM1 in kidney lineage/RCC cells, as a waypoint to identifying pathways impacted by PBRM1 loss. Unbiased immunoprecipitation/mass-spectrometry analyses of the endogenous PBRM1 interactome in kidney lineage cells revealed PAX8, a master transcription factor essential for proximal tubule epithelial fates, as the major transcription factor recruiting PBRM1/PBAF. The reverse analyses of the PAX8 interactome confirmed recruitment specifically of PBRM1/PBAF, and not the functionally similar BAF coactivator complex. More conspicuous in the PAX8 hub in RCC cells, however, were several corepressors, e.g. DNMT1, which oppose coactivators to repress instead of activate genes. Accordingly, key PAX8 target genes, e.g., GATA3, LHX1, WT1, and ~1000 other downstream kidney epithelial genes, but not PAX8 or PAX2, demonstrated loss of the histone lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac) activation mark, increase in CpG methylation repression marks, and lower expression in RCC vs normal kidney cortex, with the greatest repression in cases with bi-allelic PBRM1 inactivation. PBRM1 re-introduction into RCC cells, or depletion of the corepressor DNMT1 using siRNA or a clinical drug decitabine, rebalanced composition and function of the PAX8 transcription factor hub to coactivators, to thereby activate terminal epithelial-fates in vitro and in vivo. In sum, PBRM1 loss in RCC cells skews coregulator composition of the PAX8 master transcription factor hub toward corepressors and repression instead of activation of the downstream terminal epithelial-program; this oncogenic action could be reversed by pharmacologic corepressor depletion/inhibition.
Project description:We have sequenced miRNA libraries from human embryonic, neural and foetal mesenchymal stem cells. We report that the majority of miRNA genes encode mature isomers that vary in size by one or more bases at the 3’ and/or 5’ end of the miRNA. Northern blotting for individual miRNAs showed that the proportions of isomiRs expressed by a single miRNA gene often differ between cell and tissue types. IsomiRs were readily co-immunoprecipitated with Argonaute proteins in vivo and were active in luciferase assays, indicating that they are functional. Bioinformatics analysis predicts substantial differences in targeting between miRNAs with minor 5’ differences and in support of this we report that a 5’ isomiR-9-1 gained the ability to inhibit the expression of DNMT3B and NCAM2 but lost the ability to inhibit CDH1 in vitro. This result was confirmed by the use of isomiR-specific sponges. Our analysis of the miRGator database indicates that a small percentage of human miRNA genes express isomiRs as the dominant transcript in certain cell types and analysis of miRBase shows that 5’ isomiRs have replaced canonical miRNAs many times during evolution. This strongly indicates that isomiRs are of functional importance and have contributed to the evolution of miRNA genes