A cis-acting element in Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat required for promoter repression by HeLa nuclear protein p21

TCEAL2 as a Tumor Suppressor in Renal Cell Carcinoma is Associated with the Good Prognosis of Patients

Background

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the most common tumors in urinary tract tumors. However, the mechanism that supports renal cell carcinoma is unclear. The function of transcription elongation factor A (SII)-like 2 (TCEAL2) and its association with human cancer have not been reported.

Materials and Methods

To explore the role of TCEAL2 in carcinogenesis of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), we performed bioinformatics analysis to determine the expression levels of TCEAL2 in ccRCC specimens and normal kidney tissue and then verified findings with our samples by qPCR, Western blot and immunohistochemistry staining. Furthermore, the lentiviral vectors were used to increase the expression of TCEAL2 in ccRCC cell lines. The immunofluorescence assay was taken to observe the subcellular location of TCEAL2 in ccRCC cells, and CCK-8 and flow cytometry were introduced for assessing cell proliferation and cell cycle of ccRCC cells, respectively.

Results

Compared with adjacent normal kidney tissue and human proximal tubular epithelial cells, the expression of TCEAL2 in ccRCC tissues and cell lines was down-regulated. Patients who had low expression of TCEAL2 had a statistically significant late tumor stage. Restore of TCEAL2 in ccRCC cells inhibited cell proliferation and induced cell cycle arrest in S phase of ccRCC cells.

Conclusion

To our knowledge, this is the first report of TCEAL2 expression changes in ccRCC. We found that the decrease of TCEAL2 expression may be related to the occurrence of ccRCC. Further research is needed to clarify the molecular mechanism of TCEAL2 in progress of ccRCC.

Myogenic regulatory factors transactivate the Tceal7 gene and modulate muscle differentiation

Recurrent injuries eventually exhaust the capacity of skeletal muscle to fully restore or regenerate its cellular architecture. Therefore a comprehensive understanding of the muscle regeneration programme is needed to provide a platform for new therapies for devastating diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. To begin to decipher the molecular programme that directs muscle regeneration, we undertook an unbiased strategy using microarray analysis of cardiotoxin-injured skeletal muscle at defined time periods in the adult mouse. Using this strategy, we identified Tceal7 [transcription elongation factor A (SII)-like 7], which was dynamically regulated during muscle regeneration. Our studies revealed that Tceal7 was restricted to the skeletal muscle lineage during embryogenesis. Using transgenic technologies and transcriptional assays, we defined an upstream 0.7 kb fragment of the Tceal7 gene that directed the LacZ reporter to the developing skeletal muscle lineage. Analysis of the Tceal7 promoter revealed evolutionarily conserved E-box motifs within the 0.7 kb upstream fragment that were essential for promoter activity, as mutation of the E-box motifs resulted in the loss of reporter expression in the somites of transgenic embryos. Furthermore, we demonstrated that MRFs (myogenic regulatory factors) were Tceal7 upstream transactivators using transcriptional assays, EMSAs (electrophoretic mobility-shift assays), and ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation) assays. Overexpression of Tceal7 in C2C12 myoblasts decreased cellular proliferation and enhanced differentiation. Further studies revealed that p27 expression was up-regulated following Tceal7 overexpression. These studies support the hypothesis that MRFs transactivate Tceal7 gene expression and promote muscle differentiation during muscle development and regeneration.

A role for candidate tumor-suppressor gene TCEAL7 in the regulation of c-Myc activity, cyclin D1 levels and cellular transformation

The pathophysiological mechanisms that drive the development and progression of epithelial ovarian cancer remain obscure. Recently, we identified TCEAL7 as a transcriptional regulatory protein often downregulated in epithelial ovarian cancer. However, the biological significance of such downregulation in cancer is not currently known. Here, we show that TCEAL7 is downregulated frequently in many human cancers and that in immortalized human ovarian epithelial cells this event promotes anchorage-independent cell growth. Mechanistic investigations revealed that TCEAL7 associates with cyclin D1 promoter containing Myc E-box sequence and transcriptionally represses cyclin D1 expression. Moreover, downregulation of TCEAL7 promotes DNA-binding activity of Myc-Max, and upregulates the promoter activity of c-Myc-target gene, ornithine decarboxylase (ODC), whereas enhanced expression of TCEAL7 inhibits Myc-induced promoter activity of ODC. Our findings suggest that TCEAL7 may restrict ovarian epithelial cell transformation by limiting Myc activity. These results also suggest a potential, alternative mechanism by which c-Myc activity may be deregulated in cancer by the downregulation of TCEAL7.

Neuronal precursor-restricted transduction via in utero CNS gene delivery of a novel bipartite HSV amplicon/transposase hybrid vector

The ability to modify genetically in utero the precursors of neuronal lineage contributing to multiple postmitotic cell types in the adult central nervous system would provide a means to evaluate strategies to ameliorate conditions affecting cellular patterning, metabolism, or survival. The herpes simplex virus (HSV)-derived amplicon, a vector devoid of viral genes and with the largest known payload capacity, normally exists episomally within nuclei of transduced cells, thus precluding conveyance during mitosis. Herein, we modify the Tc1-like Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system to create an integrating amplicon vector platform wherein provision of transposase in trans effectively catalyzes integration of a transgenomic segment. Cotransduction with a Rous sarcoma virus promoter-driven beta-galactosidase-neomycin (betageo) fusion flanked by SB terminal repeats (HSVT-betageo) and a second expressing the SB transposase gene under HSV immediate-early 4/5 gene promoter control (HSVsb) resulted in integration and extension of expression duration. Most notably, in utero intraventricular application led to extensive transgene expression within neuronal precursors and their derivatives without attendant adverse consequences, suggesting this new platform could be used to evaluate prenatally the function of gene products in neuronal lineages and evaluate therapeutic strategies for correction of genetic abnormalities affecting the developing CNS.

Epigenetic silencing of TCEAL7 (Bex4) in ovarian cancer

Epigenetic silencing by hypermethylation of CpGs represents a mechanism of inactivation of tumor suppressors. Here we report on the cloning of a novel candidate tumor suppressor gene TCEAL7 inactivated by methylation in ovarian cancer. TCEAL codes for a 1.35 kb transcript that was previously reported to be downregulated in ovarian cancer by cDNA microarray and suppression subtraction cDNA (SSH) analyses. This report focuses on the elucidation of mechanisms associated with TCEAL7 downregulation. Expression of TCEAL7 is downregulated in a majority of ovarian tumors and cancer cell lines but induced by 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine treatment in a dose-dependant manner, implicating methylation as a mechanism of TCEAL7 inactivation. Sequence analyses of bisufite-modified genomic DNA from somatic cell hybrids with either the active or the inactive human X chromosome reveal that TCEAL7 is subjected to X chromosome inactivation. Loss of TCEAL7 expression in primary tumors and cell lines correlates with methylation of a CpG site within the promoter. In vitro methylation of the CpG site suppresses promoter activity whereas selective demethylation of the SmaI site attenuates the suppression. Finally, re-expression of TCEAL7 in cancer cell lines induces cell death and reduces colony formation efficiency. These data implicate TCEAL7 as a cell death regulatory protein that is frequently inactivated in ovarian cancers, and suggest that it may function as a tumor suppressor.

Genomic structure and chromosomal localization of TCEAL1, a human gene encoding the nuclear phosphoprotein p21/SIIR

Human p21/SIIR is a novel Ser/Arg/Pro-rich nuclear phosphoprotein that is 48% similar to transcription factor SII and modulates transcription in a promoter context-dependent fashion. We have obtained the complete sequence of TCEAL1, the gene that codes for p21/SIIR. This gene consists of three exons and two introns with the entire coding sequence in exon III. Tissue-specific expression patterns of TCEAL1 by Northern blot analysis showed the presence of an approximately 1.2-kb transcript in all normal human tissues examined, and heart and skeletal muscle contained an additional transcript of approximately 7 kb. Expression was lowest in hematopoietic cells of both normal and tumor origin. TCEAL1 was mapped to human chromosome Xq22.1 by fluorescence in situ hybridization.

The Ser36-Ser37 pair in HeLa nuclear protein p21/SIIR mediates Ser/Thr phosphorylation and is essential for Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat repression

Phosphorylation of HeLa SII (or TFIIS)-related nuclear protein p21/SIIR was demonstrated in transfected COS-1 cells. To test for a possible functional link between phosphorylation and the previously described Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) long terminal repeat (LTR) repression (Yeh, C.H., and Shatkin, A.J. (1994) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 91, 11002-11006), p21/SIIR mutants were constructed and assayed for phosphorylation level and effect on RSV LTR-driven chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) reporter expression. A major phosphorylation target in p21/SIIR was localized to the Arg/Ser-rich region between amino acids 12 and 49. Deletion of this region impaired the ability of p21/SIIR to down-regulate RSV LTR promoter function. Four serine pairs, all displaying the Arg/Lys-Ser-Ser motif typical of phosphorylation sites, are present in p21/SIIR between positions 31 and 48. Conversion of these individual serine pairs to alanine resulted in decreased phosphorylation in each case. Mutation of the Ser36-Ser37 pair also diminished by severalfold the repression activity of p21/SIIR. The single tyrosine (Tyr155) in p21/SIIR was not detectably phosphorylated in transfected COS-1 cells, suggesting that the Ser36-Ser37 pair mediates Ser/Thr phosphorylation of p21/SIIR and is critical for LTR repression function.