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Huber T, Horioka-Duplix M, Chen Y, Saca VR, Ceraudo E, Chen Y, Sakmar TP. The role of signaling pathways mediated by the GPCRs CysLTR1/2 in melanocyte proliferation and senescence. Sci Signal 2024; 17:eadp3967. [PMID: 39288219 DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.adp3967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2024] [Accepted: 08/15/2024] [Indexed: 09/19/2024]
Abstract
In contrast with sun exposure-induced melanoma, rarer melanocytic tumors and neoplasms with low mutational burden present opportunities to study isolated signaling mechanisms. These include uveal melanoma and blue nevi, which are often driven by mutations within the G protein-coupled signaling cascade downstream of cysteinyl leukotriene receptor 2. Here, we review how the same mutations within this pathway drive the growth of melanocytes in one tissue but can inhibit the growth of those in another, exemplifying the role of the tissue environment in the delicate balance between uncontrolled cell growth and senescence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Huber
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Mizuho Horioka-Duplix
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
- Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Chemical Biology, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Yuanhuang Chen
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
- Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Chemical Biology, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Victoria R Saca
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
- Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Chemical Biology, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Emilie Ceraudo
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Yu Chen
- Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Thomas P Sakmar
- Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
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2
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Green KJ, Pokorny J, Jarrell B. Dangerous liaisons: Loss of keratinocyte control over melanocytes in melanomagenesis. Bioessays 2024:e2400135. [PMID: 39233509 DOI: 10.1002/bies.202400135] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2024] [Accepted: 08/19/2024] [Indexed: 09/06/2024]
Abstract
Melanomas arise from transformed melanocytes, positioned at the dermal-epidermal junction in the basal layer of the epidermis. Melanocytes are completely surrounded by keratinocyte neighbors, with which they communicate through direct contact and paracrine signaling to maintain normal growth control and homeostasis. UV radiation from sunlight reshapes this communication network to drive a protective tanning response. However, repeated rounds of sun exposure result in accumulation of mutations in melanocytes that have been considered as primary drivers of melanoma initiation and progression. It is now clear that mutations in melanocytes are not sufficient to drive tumor formation-the tumor environment plays a critical role. This review focuses on changes in melanocyte-keratinocyte communication that contribute to melanoma initiation and progression, with a particular focus on recent mechanistic insights that lay a foundation for developing new ways to intercept melanoma development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathleen J Green
- Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA
- Department of Dermatology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA
- Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, USA
| | - Jenny Pokorny
- Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA
| | - Brieanna Jarrell
- Department of Pathology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, USA
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3
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Trogdon M, Abbott K, Arang N, Lande K, Kaur N, Tong M, Bakhoum M, Gutkind JS, Stites EC. Systems modeling of oncogenic G-protein and GPCR signaling reveals unexpected differences in downstream pathway activation. NPJ Syst Biol Appl 2024; 10:75. [PMID: 39013872 PMCID: PMC11252164 DOI: 10.1038/s41540-024-00400-1] [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: 07/12/2023] [Accepted: 06/27/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024] Open
Abstract
Mathematical models of biochemical reaction networks are an important and emerging tool for the study of cell signaling networks involved in disease processes. One promising potential application of such mathematical models is the study of how disease-causing mutations promote the signaling phenotype that contributes to the disease. It is commonly assumed that one must have a thorough characterization of the network readily available for mathematical modeling to be useful, but we hypothesized that mathematical modeling could be useful when there is incomplete knowledge and that it could be a tool for discovery that opens new areas for further exploration. In the present study, we first develop a mechanistic mathematical model of a G-protein coupled receptor signaling network that is mutated in almost all cases of uveal melanoma and use model-driven explorations to uncover and explore multiple new areas for investigating this disease. Modeling the two major, mutually-exclusive, oncogenic mutations (Gαq/11 and CysLT2R) revealed the potential for previously unknown qualitative differences between seemingly interchangeable disease-promoting mutations, and our experiments confirmed oncogenic CysLT2R was impaired at activating the FAK/YAP/TAZ pathway relative to Gαq/11. This led us to hypothesize that CYSLTR2 mutations in UM must co-occur with other mutations to activate FAK/YAP/TAZ signaling, and our bioinformatic analysis uncovers a role for co-occurring mutations involving the plexin/semaphorin pathway, which has been shown capable of activating this pathway. Overall, this work highlights the power of mechanism-based computational systems biology as a discovery tool that can leverage available information to open new research areas.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Trogdon
- Integrative Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
- Pfizer, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Kodye Abbott
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
| | - Nadia Arang
- Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
- Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Kathryn Lande
- Razavi Newman Integrative Genomics and Bioinformatics Core, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Navneet Kaur
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
| | - Melinda Tong
- Integrative Biology Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA
| | - Mathieu Bakhoum
- Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
- Yale Cancer Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
| | - J Silvio Gutkind
- Moores Cancer Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
- Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA
| | - Edward C Stites
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
- Yale Cancer Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA.
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Saad MN, Hamed M. Transcriptome-Wide Association Study Reveals New Molecular Interactions Associated with Melanoma Pathogenesis. Cancers (Basel) 2024; 16:2517. [PMID: 39061157 PMCID: PMC11274789 DOI: 10.3390/cancers16142517] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2024] [Revised: 06/27/2024] [Accepted: 07/09/2024] [Indexed: 07/28/2024] Open
Abstract
A transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) was conducted on genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics of malignant melanoma of skin (UK Biobank dataset) and The Cancer Genome Atlas-Skin Cutaneous Melanoma (TCGA-SKCM) gene expression weights to identify melanoma susceptibility genes. The GWAS included 2465 cases and 449,799 controls, while the gene expression testing was conducted on 103 cases. Afterward, a gene enrichment analysis was applied to identify significant TWAS associations. The melanoma's gene-microRNA (miRNA) regulatory network was constructed from the TWAS genes and their corresponding miRNAs. At last, a disease enrichment analysis was conducted on the corresponding miRNAs. The TWAS detected 27 genes associated with melanoma with p-values less than 0.05 (the top three genes are LOC389458 (RBAK), C16orf73 (MEIOB), and EIF3CL). After the joint/conditional test, one gene (AMIGO1) was dropped, resulting in 26 significant genes. The Gene Ontology (GO) biological process associated the extended gene set (76 genes) with protein K11-linked ubiquitination and regulation of cell cycle phase transition. K11-linked ubiquitin chains regulate cell division. Interestingly, the extended gene set was related to different skin cancer subtypes. Moreover, the enriched pathways were nsp1 from SARS-CoV-2 that inhibit translation initiation in the host cell, cell cycle, translation factors, and DNA repair pathways full network. The gene-miRNA regulatory network identified 10 hotspot genes with the top three: TP53, BRCA1, and MDM2; and four hotspot miRNAs: mir-16, mir-15a, mir-125b, and mir-146a. Melanoma was among the top ten diseases associated with the corresponding (106) miRNAs. Our results shed light on melanoma pathogenesis and biologically significant molecular interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohamed N. Saad
- Biomedical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Minia University, Minia 61519, Egypt
- Institute for Biostatistics and Informatics in Medicine and Ageing Research (IBIMA), Rostock University Medical Center, 18057 Rostock, Germany;
| | - Mohamed Hamed
- Institute for Biostatistics and Informatics in Medicine and Ageing Research (IBIMA), Rostock University Medical Center, 18057 Rostock, Germany;
- Faculty of Media Engineering and Technology, German University in Cairo, Cairo 11835, Egypt
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Mengoni M, Braun AD, Seedarala S, Bonifatius S, Kostenis E, Schanze D, Zenker M, Tüting T, Gaffal E. Transactivation of Met signaling by oncogenic Gnaq drives the evolution of melanoma in Hgf-Cdk4 mice. Cancer Gene Ther 2024; 31:884-893. [PMID: 38360887 PMCID: PMC11192630 DOI: 10.1038/s41417-024-00744-0] [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: 09/17/2023] [Revised: 01/30/2024] [Accepted: 02/06/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
Recent pan-cancer genomic analyses have identified numerous oncogenic driver mutations that occur in a cell-type and tissue-specific distribution. For example, oncogenic mutations in Braf and Nras genes arise predominantly in melanocytic neoplasms of the epidermis, while oncogenic mutations in Gnaq/11 genes arise mostly in melanocytic lesions of the dermis or the uvea. The mechanisms promoting cell-type and tissue-specific oncogenic events currently remain poorly understood. Here, we report that Gnaq/11 hotspot mutations occur as early oncogenic drivers during the evolution of primary melanomas in Hgf-Cdk4 mice. Additional single base substitutions in the Trp53 gene and structural chromosomal aberrations favoring amplifications of the chromosomal region containing the Met receptor gene accumulate during serial tumor transplantation and in cell lines established in vitro. Mechanistically, we found that the GnaqQ209L mutation transactivates the Met receptor. Overexpression of oncogenic GnaqQ209L in the immortalized melanocyte cell line promoted in vivo growth that was enhanced by transgenic Hgf expression in the tumor microenvironment. This cross-signaling mechanism explains the selection of oncogenic Gnaq/11 in primary Hgf-Cdk4 melanomas and provides an example of how oncogenic driver mutations, intracellular signaling cascades, and microenvironmental cues cooperate to drive cancer development in a tissue-specific fashion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miriam Mengoni
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Andreas Dominik Braun
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Sahithi Seedarala
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Susanne Bonifatius
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Evi Kostenis
- Molecular, Cellular and Pharmacobiology Section, Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Bonn, Nussallee 6, 53115, Bonn, Germany
| | - Denny Schanze
- Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Martin Zenker
- Institute of Human Genetics, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Thomas Tüting
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Evelyn Gaffal
- Laboratory for Experimental Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Magdeburg, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany.
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Chang Chien YC, Beke L, Méhes G, Mokánszki A. Anastomosing Haemangioma: Report of Three Cases With Molecular and Immunohistochemical Studies and Comparison With Well-Differentiated Angiosarcoma. Pathol Oncol Res 2022; 28:1610498. [PMID: 35979530 PMCID: PMC9376968 DOI: 10.3389/pore.2022.1610498] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2022] [Accepted: 06/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Anastomosing haemangioma (AH) is a newly described distinct vascular neoplasm that histologically may confuse with well-differentiated angiosarcoma (AS) for those who are unfamiliar with this rare entity. We aimed to identify molecular genetic differences between AHs and ASs by carrying out immunohistochemistry (IHC), fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), and next-generation sequencing (NGS). Immunohistochemically, all six cases showed positivity for cyclinD1 and pERK. All cases of AH showed focal weak positive reaction for p53 and MIB-1, and the IHCs for HIF-1α were all negative for all three cases. Those three cases of angiosarcoma revealed strong, diffuse positivity for p53, 50%–70% MIB-1 labelling, and multifocal, moderate to strong HIF-1α expression. To further clarify the difference in p53 expression, we carried out a FISH which revealed 17p polysomy in all three ASs whereas copy number aberration was absent in the AH group. In one AH case, the GNA11 c.627G > T nucleotide variant was detected. Due to the rarity and overlapping morphological features, AH might be difficult to separate from other vascular tumours, in particular from well-differentiated AS also featured by mild hyperchromatic, hobnail-like endothelial cells. The potential molecular differences between these two entities presented here may be used in support of the correct diagnosis.
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Pop S, Urtatiz O, Van Raamsdonk CD. Isolation of tdTomato Expressing Inter-follicular Epidermal Melanocytes or Keratinocytes from Mouse Tail Skin. Bio Protoc 2022; 12:e4398. [PMID: 35800096 PMCID: PMC9081482 DOI: 10.21769/bioprotoc.4398] [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: 02/25/2022] [Revised: 12/22/2021] [Accepted: 03/01/2022] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The epidermis is the outermost layer of the skin. It is made up of mostly keratinocytes along with a small number of melanocytes and Langerhans cells. Melanocytes produce a pigment called melanin, which is transferred to the keratinocytes, and protects these cells from damage from UV radiation, as well as generating hair and skin colours. In this important relationship, keratinocytes exert control over melanocytes. Many questions regarding keratinocyte-melanocyte interactions have yet to be answered, and would benefit from study in model systems, to address diseases such as vitiligo and cutaneous melanoma. Most of the mouse is covered in fur and these areas lack the skin pigmenting inter-follicular epidermal (IFE) melanocytes. However, the mouse tail is pigmented analogously to human skin. Here, we present a method for isolating IFE melanocytes or keratinocytes expressing the tdTomato marker from the mouse tail, using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). The method involves firstly separating the tail skin epidermis from the dermis, and then digesting the epidermis to produce dissociated cells, which can then be sorted. These isolated cell populations can be studied using RNAseq or cultured in vitro. This protocol isolates IFE melanocytes or keratinocytes and immediately provides reasonable yields of cells, without the need to stain the cells for cell specific markers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel Pop
- Department of Medical Genetics, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver B.C., V6T 1Z3, Canada
| | - Oscar Urtatiz
- Department of Medical Genetics, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver B.C., V6T 1Z3, Canada
| | - Catherine D. Van Raamsdonk
- Department of Medical Genetics, Life Sciences Institute, University of British Columbia, 2350 Health Sciences Mall, Vancouver B.C., V6T 1Z3, Canada,
*For correspondence:
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