Dataset Information

MiR-34a controls proliferation and plasticity of early-progenitors in the normal mammary gland and in breast cancer

ABSTRACT: The miR-34 is a tumor-suppressor miRNA family involved in various human cancers, including breast. However, the role of such miRNAs in the control of mammary stem cells (MaSCs), early-progenitors and their tumor counterparts, (CSCs) lies largely unexplored. Here, we identified miR-34a as directly regulated by TP53 in primary mouse mammospheres. Expression of miR-34a is induced upon luminal commitment and differentiation and able to inhibit the expansion of the MaSCs/early-progenitor pool in a p53-independent fashion. Loss of function approaches revealed that miR-34 negatively controls both proliferation and fate commitment in mammary progenitors by modulating several pathways involved in epithelial cell plasticity and luminal-to-basal conversion. In particular, miR-34a negatively regulates Wnt/b-catenin signaling pathway, targeting multiple upstream regulators and, thus, modulating the expansion of the MaSCs/early-progenitor pool. These multiple roles of miR-34a were maintained in a model of human breast cancer, where chronic expression of miR-34a in triple-negative mesenchymal-like cells (enriched in CSCs) reduced tumor growth, restricted CSC pool and inhibited tumor propagation by promoting a luminal-like differentiation program.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE99401 | GEO | 2018/06/26

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a disorder due to inherited mutations in the TP53 gene resulting in an increased risk of developing several types of cancer. MicroRNA miR-34a has been implicated downstream of p53 on the basis of being a direct transcriptional target and, when over-expressed, having pro-apoptotic phenotypes in cell lines. Moreover, miR-34a has been shown to be a modifier gene in the context of LFS, since its epigenetic silencing increases the likelihood of tumour development in patients with mutant TP53. However, the in vivo consequences of miR-34 loss are still unclear. For example, mice lacking all three (a,b,c) miR-34 homologs show no detectable abnormalities in p53 responses. The relative expression of different miR-34 genes in zebrafish was studied using qRT-PCR with specific assays. The miR-34a, miR-34b and miR-34c display unique onset of developmental expression and expression levels, with miR-34a being the most abundant and constant in expression. All of the miR-34 genes also showed clear induction by p53 when DNA-damaging treatments are performed. Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, we generated a zebrafish miR-34a deletion mutant to further investigate the roles of miR-34a on its own and its association with the p53 pathway. Predictably, a miR-34a deletion mutant demonstrated absence of miR-34a, though without miR-34b and miR-34c compensation beyond baseline expression levels. Mutants survive to adulthood, show no overt phenotypes and have normal apoptotic responses to DNA-damaging irradiation or camptothecin treatments. To further explore the effects of miR-34a, we performed gene expression profiling using RNA-seq of wild-type and miR-34a deletion mutant zebrafish embryos at 8 hpf. This experiment was motivated by a previous report knock-down of miR-34a in zebrafish leads to dramatic increases in expression of miR-34a target genes. We therefore expected that this experiment will help define the set of miR-34a target genes. The results of this RNA-seq experiment showed that the loss of miR-34a led to large transcriptomic effects at 8 hpf (1573 genes UP and 1679 genes DOWN at 1.5-fold change and FDR < 0.05). There was no significant enrichment of predicted miR-34a target genes among the differentially regulated genes but some interesting biological trends were found and will be described in the paper associated with this dataset.

Project description:Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a disorder due to inherited mutations in the TP53 gene resulting in an increased risk of developing several types of cancer. MicroRNA miR-34a has been implicated downstream of p53 on the basis of being a direct transcriptional target and, when over-expressed, having pro-apoptotic phenotypes in cell lines. Moreover, miR-34a has been shown to be a modifier gene in the context of LFS, since its epigenetic silencing increases the likelihood of tumour development in patients with mutant TP53. However, the in vivo consequences of miR-34 loss are still unclear. For example, mice lacking all three (a,b,c) miR-34 homologs show no detectable abnormalities in p53 responses. The relative expression of different miR-34 genes in zebrafish was studied using qRT-PCR with specific assays. The miR-34a, miR-34b and miR-34c display unique onset of developmental expression and expression levels, with miR-34a being the most abundant and constant in expression. All of the miR-34 genes also showed clear induction by p53 when DNA-damaging treatments are performed. Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, we generated a zebrafish miR-34a deletion mutant to further investigate the roles of miR-34a on its own and its association with the p53 pathway. Predictably, a miR-34a deletion mutant demonstrated absence of miR-34a, though without miR-34b and miR-34c compensation beyond baseline expression levels. Mutants survive to adulthood, show no overt phenotypes and have normal apoptotic responses to DNA-damaging irradiation or camptothecin treatments. To further explore the effects of miR-34a, we performed gene expression profiling using RNA-seq of wild-type and miR-34a deletion mutant zebrafish embryos at 28 hpf with or without treatment with a DNA-damaging drug camptothecin. The results of this RNA-seq experiments showed that the loss of miR-34a does not strongly affect induction of genes by DNA-damage. However, the overall pattern of gene expression is significantly different as shown by Principal Component Analysis and there is a group of about 100 genes which are differentially expressed due to loss of miR-34a. The dataset we present in this submission was used to reach these conclusions.

Project description:Li-Fraumeni syndrome (LFS) is a disorder due to inherited mutations in the TP53 gene resulting in an increased risk of developing several types of cancer. MicroRNA miR-34a has been implicated downstream of p53 on the basis of being a direct transcriptional target and, when over-expressed, having pro-apoptotic phenotypes in cell lines. Moreover, miR-34a has been shown to be a modifier gene in the context of LFS, since its epigenetic silencing increases the likelihood of tumour development in patients with mutant TP53. However, the in vivo consequences of miR-34 loss are still unclear. For example, mice lacking all three (a,b,c) miR-34 homologs show no detectable abnormalities in p53 responses. The relative expression of different miR-34 genes in zebrafish was studied using qRT-PCR with specific assays. The miR-34a, miR-34b and miR-34c display unique onset of developmental expression and expression levels, with miR-34a being the most abundant and constant in expression. All of the miR-34 genes also showed clear induction by p53 when DNA-damaging treatments are performed. Using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, we generated a zebrafish miR-34a deletion mutant to further investigate the roles of miR-34a on its own and its association with the p53 pathway. Predictably, a miR-34a deletion mutant demonstrated absence of miR-34a, though without miR-34b and miR-34c compensation beyond baseline expression levels. Mutants survive to adulthood, show no overt phenotypes and have normal apoptotic responses to DNA-damaging irradiation or camptothecin treatments. To further explore the effects of miR-34a, we performed gene expression profiling using RNA-seq of wild-type and miR-34a deletion mutant zebrafish embryos at 72 hpf. We wanted to explore how miR-34a loss affects differentiated organs in larval zebrafish. This resulted in 389 genes UP and 374 genes DOWN at 1.5-fold change and FDR < 0.05. There was no significant enrichment of predicted miR-34a target genes among the differentially regulated genes but some interesting biological trends were found and will be described in the paper associated with this dataset.