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Barua D, Płecha M, Muszewska A. A minimal Fanconi Anemia complex in early diverging fungi. Sci Rep 2024; 14:9922. [PMID: 38688950 PMCID: PMC11061109 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-60318-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 04/22/2024] [Indexed: 05/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Fanconi Anemia (FA) pathway resolves DNA interstrand cross links (ICL). The FA pathway was initially recognized in vertebrates, but was later confirmed in other animals and speculated in fungi. FA proteins FANCM, FANCL and FANCJ are present in Saccharomyces cerevisiae but, their mechanism of interaction to resolve ICL is still unclear. Unlike Dikarya, early diverging fungi (EDF) possess more traits shared with animals. We traced the evolutionary history of the FA pathway across Opisthokonta. We scanned complete proteomes for FA-related homologs to establish their taxonomic distribution and analyzed their phylogenetic trees. We checked transcription profiles of FA genes to test if they respond to environmental conditions and their genomic localizations for potential co-localization. We identified fungal homologs of the activation and ID complexes, 5 out of 8 core proteins, all of the endonucleases, and deubiquitination proteins. All fungi lack FANCC, FANCF and FANCG proteins responsible for post-replication repair and chromosome stability in animals. The observed taxonomic distribution can be attributed to a gradual degradation of the FA pathway from EDF to Dikarya. One of the key differences is that EDF have the ID complex recruiting endonucleases to the site of ICL. Moreover, 21 out of 32 identified FA genes are upregulated in response to different growth conditions. Several FA genes are co-localized in fungal genomes which also could facilitate co-expression. Our results indicate that a minimal FA pathway might still be functional in Mucoromycota with a gradual loss of components in Dikarya ancestors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Drishtee Barua
- Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawińskiego 5A, 02-106, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Magdalena Płecha
- Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawińskiego 5A, 02-106, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Anna Muszewska
- Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Pawińskiego 5A, 02-106, Warsaw, Poland.
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Schaf J, Shinhmar S, Zeng Q, Pardo OE, Beesley P, Syed N, Williams RSB. Enhanced Sestrin expression through Tanshinone 2A treatment improves PI3K-dependent inhibition of glioma growth. Cell Death Discov 2023; 9:172. [PMID: 37202382 DOI: 10.1038/s41420-023-01462-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2022] [Revised: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 05/03/2023] [Indexed: 05/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Glioblastomas are a highly aggressive cancer type which respond poorly to current pharmaceutical treatments, thus novel therapeutic approaches need to be investigated. One such approach involves the use of the bioactive natural product Tanshinone IIA (T2A) derived from the Chinese herb Danshen, where mechanistic insight for this anti-cancer agent is needed to validate its use. Here, we employ a tractable model system, Dictyostelium discoideum, to provide this insight. T2A potently inhibits cellular proliferation of Dictyostelium, suggesting molecular targets in this model. We show that T2A rapidly reduces phosphoinositide 3 kinase (PI3K) and protein kinase B (PKB) activity, but surprisingly, the downstream complex mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) is only inhibited following chronic treatment. Investigating regulators of mTORC1, including PKB, tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), suggests these enzymes were not responsible for this effect, implicating an additional molecular mechanism of T2A. We identify this mechanism as the increased expression of sestrin, a negative regulator of mTORC1. We further show that combinatory treatment using a PI3K inhibitor and T2A gives rise to a synergistic inhibition of cell proliferation. We then translate our findings to human and mouse-derived glioblastoma cell lines, where both a PI3K inhibitor (Paxalisib) and T2A reduces glioblastoma proliferation in monolayer cultures and in spheroid expansion, with combinatory treatment significantly enhancing this effect. Thus, we propose a new approach for cancer treatment, including glioblastomas, through combinatory treatment with PI3K inhibitors and T2A.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Schaf
- Centre for Biomedical Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Sonia Shinhmar
- Centre for Biomedical Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Qingyu Zeng
- John Fulcher Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK
| | - Olivier E Pardo
- Division of Cancer, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Philip Beesley
- Centre for Biomedical Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Nelofer Syed
- John Fulcher Neuro-Oncology Laboratory, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK
| | - Robin S B Williams
- Centre for Biomedical Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK.
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3
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Kin K, Chen ZH, Forbes G, Lawal H, Schilde C, Singh R, Cole C, Barton GJ, Schaap P. The protein kinases of Dictyostelia and their incorporation into a signalome. Cell Signal 2023; 108:110714. [PMID: 37187217 DOI: 10.1016/j.cellsig.2023.110714] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/07/2023] [Revised: 05/02/2023] [Accepted: 05/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/17/2023]
Abstract
Protein kinases are major regulators of cellular processes, but the roles of most kinases remain unresolved. Dictyostelid social amoebas have been useful in identifying functions for 30% of its kinases in cell migration, cytokinesis, vesicle trafficking, gene regulation and other processes but their upstream regulators and downstream effectors are mostly unknown. Comparative genomics can assist to distinguish between genes involved in deeply conserved core processes and those involved in species-specific innovations, while co-expression of genes as evident from comparative transcriptomics can provide cues to the protein complement of regulatory networks. Genomes and developmental and cell-type specific transcriptomes are available for species that span the 0.5 billion years of evolution of Dictyostelia from their unicellular ancestors. In this work we analysed conservation and change in the abundance, functional domain architecture and developmental regulation of protein kinases across the 4 major taxon groups of Dictyostelia. All data are summarized in annotated phylogenetic trees of the kinase subtypes and accompanied by functional information of all kinases that were experimentally studied. We detected 393 different protein kinase domains across the five studied genomes, of which 212 were fully conserved. Conservation was highest (71%) in the previously defined AGC, CAMK, CK1, CMCG, STE and TKL groups and lowest (26%) in the "other" group of typical protein kinases. This was mostly due to species-specific single gene amplification of "other" kinases. Apart from the AFK and α-kinases, the atypical protein kinases, such as the PIKK and histidine kinases were also almost fully conserved. The phylogeny-wide developmental and cell-type specific expression profiles of the protein kinase genes were combined with profiles from the same transcriptomic experiments for the families of G-protein coupled receptors, small GTPases and their GEFs and GAPs, the transcription factors and for all genes that upon lesion generate a developmental defect. This dataset was subjected to hierarchical clustering to identify clusters of co-expressed genes that potentially act together in a signalling network. The work provides a valuable resource that allows researchers to identify protein kinases and other regulatory proteins that are likely to act as intermediates in a network of interest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Koryu Kin
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Zhi-Hui Chen
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom
| | - Gillian Forbes
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; Institut de Génomique Fonctionnelle de Lyon (IGFL), CNRS, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Université Claude Bernard Lyon-1, Lyon 69007, France.
| | - Hajara Lawal
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom
| | - Christina Schilde
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; D'Arcy Thompson Unit, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, DD1 4HN, United Kingdom.
| | - Reema Singh
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; Computational Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan,120 Veterinary Road, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5E3, Canada.
| | - Christian Cole
- Computational Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom; Population Health and Genomics, School of Medicine, University of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee DD1 9SY, United Kingdom
| | - Geoffrey J Barton
- Computational Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom
| | - Pauline Schaap
- Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, United Kingdom.
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Gill SE, Chain FJJ. Very Low Rates of Spontaneous Gene Deletions and Gene Duplications in Dictyostelium discoideum. J Mol Evol 2023; 91:24-32. [PMID: 36484794 PMCID: PMC9849192 DOI: 10.1007/s00239-022-10081-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2022] [Accepted: 12/02/2022] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The study of spontaneous mutation rates has revealed a wide range of heritable point mutation rates across species, but there are comparatively few estimates for large-scale deletion and duplication rates. The handful of studies that have directly calculated spontaneous rates of deletion and duplication using mutation accumulation lines have estimated that genes are duplicated and deleted at orders of magnitude greater rates than the spontaneous point mutation rate. In our study, we tested whether spontaneous gene deletion and gene duplication rates are also high in Dictyostelium discoideum, a eukaryote with among the lowest point mutation rates (2.5 × 10-11 per site per generation) and an AT-rich genome (GC content of 22%). We calculated mutation rates of gene deletions and duplications using whole-genome sequencing data originating from a mutation accumulation experiment and determined the association between the copy number mutations and GC content. Overall, we estimated an average of 3.93 × 10-8 gene deletions and 1.18 × 10-8 gene duplications per gene per generation. While orders of magnitude greater than their point mutation rate, these rates are much lower compared to gene deletion and duplication rates estimated from mutation accumulation lines in other organisms (that are on the order of ~ 10-6 per gene/generation). The deletions and duplications were enriched in regions that were AT-rich even compared to the genomic background, in contrast to our expectations if low GC content was contributing to low mutation rates. The low deletion and duplication mutation rates in D. discoideum compared to other eukaryotes mirror their low point mutation rates, supporting previous work suggesting that this organism has high replication fidelity and effective molecular machinery to avoid the accumulation of mutations in their genome.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shelbi E Gill
- Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, 01854-2874, USA.
| | - Frédéric J J Chain
- Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, 01854-2874, USA.
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Williams FN, Scaglione KM. Insights on Microsatellite Characteristics, Evolution, and Function From the Social Amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:886837. [PMID: 35769695 PMCID: PMC9234386 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.886837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2022] [Accepted: 05/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Microsatellites are repetitive sequences commonly found in the genomes of higher organisms. These repetitive sequences are prone to expansion or contraction, and when microsatellite expansion occurs in the regulatory or coding regions of genes this can result in a number of diseases including many neurodegenerative diseases. Unlike in humans and other organisms, the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum contains an unusually high number of microsatellites. Intriguingly, many of these microsatellites fall within the coding region of genes, resulting in nearly 10,000 homopolymeric repeat proteins within the Dictyostelium proteome. Surprisingly, among the most common of these repeats are polyglutamine repeats, a type of repeat that causes a class of nine neurodegenerative diseases in humans. In this minireview, we summarize what is currently known about homopolymeric repeats and microsatellites in Dictyostelium discoideum and discuss the potential utility of Dictyostelium for identifying novel mechanisms that utilize and regulate regions of repetitive DNA.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felicia N. Williams
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
| | - K. Matthew Scaglione
- Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
- Department of Neurology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
- Duke Center for Neurodegeneration and Neurotherapeutics, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
- *Correspondence: K. Matthew Scaglione,
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Williams RSB, Chubb JR, Insall R, King JS, Pears CJ, Thompson E, Weijer CJ. Moving the Research Forward: The Best of British Biology Using the Tractable Model System Dictyostelium discoideum. Cells 2021; 10:3036. [PMID: 34831258 PMCID: PMC8616412 DOI: 10.3390/cells10113036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2021] [Revised: 11/01/2021] [Accepted: 11/03/2021] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum provides an excellent model for research across a broad range of disciplines within biology. The organism diverged from the plant, yeast, fungi and animal kingdoms around 1 billion years ago but retains common aspects found in these kingdoms. Dictyostelium has a low level of genetic complexity and provides a range of molecular, cellular, biochemical and developmental biology experimental techniques, enabling multidisciplinary studies to be carried out in a wide range of areas, leading to research breakthroughs. Numerous laboratories within the United Kingdom employ Dictyostelium as their core research model. This review introduces Dictyostelium and then highlights research from several leading British research laboratories, covering their distinct areas of research, the benefits of using the model, and the breakthroughs that have arisen due to the use of Dictyostelium as a tractable model system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Robin S. B. Williams
- Centre for Biomedical Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Jonathan R. Chubb
- UCL Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK;
| | - Robert Insall
- Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, Switchback Road, Glasgow G61 1QH, UK;
| | - Jason S. King
- School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, Firth Court, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK;
| | - Catherine J. Pears
- Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK;
| | - Elinor Thompson
- School of Science, University of Greenwich, Chatham Maritime, Chatham ME4 4TB, UK;
| | - Cornelis J. Weijer
- Division of Cell and Developmental Biology, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 5EH, UK;
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