Constitutive Turnover of Cyclin E by Cul3 Maintains Quiescence▿ †

Two distinct pathways for the degradation of mammalian cyclin E have previously been described. One pathway is induced by cyclin E phosphorylation and is dependent on the Cul1/Fbw7-based E3 ligase. The other pathway is dependent on the Cul3-based E3 ligase, but the mechanistic details of this pathway have yet to be elucidated. To establish the role of Cul3 in the degradation of cyclin E in vivo, we created a conditional knockout of the Cul3 gene in mice. Interestingly, the biallelic loss of Cul3 in primary fibroblasts derived from these mice results in increased cyclin E expression and reduced cell viability, paralleling the loss of Cul3 protein expression. Cell cycle analysis of viable, Cul3 hypomorphic cells shows that decreasing the levels of Cul3 increases both cyclin E protein levels and the number of cells in S phase. In order to examine the role of Cul3 in an in vivo setting, we determined the effect of deletion of the Cul3 gene in liver. This gene deletion resulted in a dramatic increase in cyclin E levels as well as an increase in cell size and ploidy. The results we report here show that the constitutive degradation pathway for cyclin E that is regulated by the Cul3-based E3 ligase is essential to maintain quiescence in mammalian cells

Cross-species genomic and epigenomic landscape of retinoblastoma

Genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) of human cancer are important for advancing our understanding of tumor initiation and progression as well as for testing novel therapeutics. Retinoblastoma is a childhood cancer of the developing retina that initiates with biallelic inactivation of the RB1 gene. GEMMs faithfully recapitulate the histopathology, molecular, cellular, morphometric, neuroanatomical and neurochemical features of human retinoblastoma. In this study, we analyzed the genomic and epigenomic landscape of murine retinoblastoma and compared them to human retinoblastomas to gain insight into shared mechanisms of tumor progression across species. Similar to human retinoblastoma, mouse tumors have low rates of single nucleotide variations. However, mouse retinoblastomas have higher rates of aneuploidy and regional and focal copy number changes that vary depending on the genetic lesions that initiate tumorigenesis in the developing murine retina. Furthermore, the epigenetic landscape in mouse retinoblastoma was significantly different from human tumors and some pathways that are candidates for molecular targeted therapy for human retinoblastoma such as SYK or MCL1 are not deregulated in GEMMs. Taken together, these data suggest there are important differences between mouse and human retinoblastomas with respect to the mechanism of tumor progression and those differences can have significant implications for translational research to test the efficacy of novel therapies for this devastating childhood cancer

A novel retinoblastoma therapy from genomic and epigenetic analyses

Retinoblastoma is an aggressive childhood cancer of the developing retina that is initiated by the biallelic loss of the RB1 gene. To identify the mutations that cooperate with RB1 loss, we performed whole-genome sequencing of retinoblastomas. The overall mutational rate was very low; RB1 was the only known cancer gene mutated. We then evaluated RB1’s role in genome stability and considered nongenetic mechanisms of cancer pathway deregulation. Here we show that the retinoblastoma genome is stable, but multiple cancer pathways can be epigenetically deregulated. For example, the proto-oncogene SYK is upregulated in retinoblastoma and is required for tumor cell survival. Targeting SYK with a small-molecule inhibitor induced retinoblastoma tumor cell death in vitro and in vivo. Thus, RB1 inactivation may allow preneoplastic cells to acquire multiple hallmarks of cancer through epigenetic mechanisms, resulting directly or indirectly from RB1 loss. These data provide novel targets for chemotherapeutic interventions of retinoblastoma

Delaying surgery for patients with a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection

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