Project description:The APOBEC3 cytosine deaminases are implicated as the cause of a prevalent somatic mutation pattern found in cancer genomes. The APOBEC3 enzymes act as viral restriction factors by mutating viral genomes. Mutation of the cellular genome is presumed to be an off-target activity of the enzymes, although the regulatory measures for APOBEC3 expression and activity remain undefined. It is therefore difficult to predict the circumstances that enable APOBEC3 interaction with cellular DNA that leads to mutagenesis. The APOBEC3A (A3A) enzyme is the most potent deaminase of the family. Using proteomics, we evaluated protein interactors of A3A to identify potential regulators. We found that A3A interacts with the Chaperonin Containing TCP-1 (CCT) complex, a cellular machine that assists in protein folding and function. Importantly, depletion of CCT resulted in increased A3A-induced cytotoxicity. Evaluation of cancer genomes demonstrated an enrichment of A3A mutational signatures in cancers with silencing mutations in CCT subunit genes. Together, these data suggest that the CCT complex interacts with A3A, and that disruption of CCT function results in increased A3A mutational activity.
Project description:Macrophages acquire a pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype in response to microbial products or pro-inflammatory cytokines through incompletely understood molecular mechanisms. We recently described the induction of APOBEC3A-mediated cellular site-specific cytosine-to-uracil (C>U) RNA editing during M1 macrophage polarization. However, the functional significance of this RNA editing is unknown. Here, we find that cellular RNA editing by APOBEC3A can also be induced by influenza or Maraba virus infections in normal macrophages, and by interferons in tumor-associated macrophages. Gene knockdown and RNA Seq analyses show that APOBEC3A induces C>U RNA editing (range 7%-88%) of 209 exonic or UTR sites in 203 genes during M1 polarization of monocyte-derived macrophages. The highest level of deleterious protein-recoding C>U RNA editing is observed in THOC5, which encodes a key nuclear protein implicated in the export of mRNAs during M-CSF driven macrophage differentiation. Knockdown of APOBEC3A in M1 macrophages reduces pro-inflammatory IL6, IL23A, and IL12B gene expression, CD80 and CD86 surface protein expression, and TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 cytokine secretion, and increases glycolysis and glycolytic capacity. These results demonstrate that APOBEC3A cytidine deaminase plays an important role in transcriptomic and functional polarization of pro-inflammatory M1 macrophages.
Project description:Transition of cytosine to thymine in CpG dinucleotides is the most frequent type of mutation in cancer. This increased mutability is commonly attributed to the spontaneous deamination of 5-methylcytosine (5mC), which is normally repaired by the base-excision repair (BER) pathway. However, the contribution of 5mC deamination in the increasing diversity of cancer mutational signatures remains poorly explored. Here, we integrate mutational signatures analysis in a large series of tumor whole genomes with lineage-specific epigenomic data to draw a detailed view on 5mC deamination in cancer. We uncover tumor type-specific patterns of 5mC deamination signatures in CpG and non-CpG contexts. We demonstrate that the BER glycosylase MBD4 preferentially binds to active chromatin and early replicating DNA, which correlates with lower mutational burden in these domains. We validate our findings by modeling BER deficiencies in isogenic cell models. Overall, we establish MBD4 as the main actor responsible for 5mC deamination repair in humans.
Project description:<p>International differences in the incidence of many cancer types indicate the existence of carcinogen exposures that have not been identified by conventional epidemiology yet potentially make a substantial contribution to cancer burden1. This pertains to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), for which obesity, hypertension, and tobacco smoking are risk factors but do not explain its geographical variation in incidence2. Some carcinogens generate somatic mutations and a complementary strategy for detecting past exposures is to sequence the genomes of cancers from populations with different incidence rates and infer underlying causes from differences in patterns of somatic mutations. Here, we sequenced 962 ccRCC from 11 countries of varying incidence. Somatic mutation profiles differed between countries. In Romania, Serbia and Thailand, mutational signatures likely caused by extracts of Aristolochia plants were present in most cases and rare elsewhere. In Japan, a mutational signature of unknown cause was found in >70% cases and <2% elsewhere. A further mutational signature of unknown cause was ubiquitous but exhibited higher mutation loads in countries with higher kidney cancer incidence rates (p-value <6 × 10−18). Known signatures of tobacco smoking correlated with tobacco consumption, but no signature was associated with obesity or hypertension suggesting non-mutagenic mechanisms of action underlying these risk factors. The results indicate the existence of multiple, geographically variable, mutagenic exposures potentially affecting 10s of millions of people and illustrate the opportunities for new insights into cancer causation through large-scale global cancer genomics.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Linked cross omic data sets:</strong></p><p>Geographic variation of mutagenic exposures in kidney cancer genomes – patient metadata files (<strong>Mutographs</strong>) associated with this study are available in the <strong>European Genome-Phenome Archive</strong>: https://ega-archive.org/datasets/EGAD00001012223.</p>
Project description:We aimed to decipher APOBEC3A driven mutational differences in human PDX_PDAC tissues. 40 human PDX_PDAC tissues were grouped based on their APOBEC3A expression levels into APOBEC3A High and Low groups. Illumina whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed and downstream variant analysis was applied.
Project description:N 4-methylcytosine (4mC) is a natural DNA modification occurring in thermophiles and plays important roles in restriction-modification (R-M) systems in bacterial genomes. However, the precise location and sequence context of 4mC in the whole genome are limited. In this study, we developed an APOBEC3A-mediated deamination sequencing (4mC-AMD-seq) method for genome-wide mapping of 4mC at single-base resolution. In the 4mC-AMD-seq method, cytosine and 5-methylcytosine (5mC) are deaminated by APOBEC3A (A3A) protein to generate uracil and thymine, both of which are read as thymine in sequencing, while 4mC is resistant to deamination and therefore read as cytosine. Thus, the readouts of cytosines from sequencing could manifest the original 4mC sites in genomes. With the 4mC-AMD-seq method, we achieved the genome-wide mapping of 4mC in Deinococcus radiodurans (D. radiodurans). In addition, we confirmed that 4mC, but not 5mC, was the major modification in the D. radiodurans genome. We identified 1586 4mC sites in the genome of D. radiodurans, among which 564 sites were located in the CCGCGG motif. The average methylation levels in the CCGCGG motif and non-CCGCGG sequence were 70.0% and 22.8%, respectively. We envision that the 4mC-AMD-seq method will facilitate the investigation of 4mC functions, including the 4mC-involved R-M systems, in uncharacterized but potentially useful strains.
Project description:APOBEC3s-related somatic mutations are the predominant burden in biliary tract cancers (BTCs). Here, we reveal the effects and mechanisms of APOBEC3A/3B functional polymorphisms on cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer (GBC). rs2267401-G at the APOBEC3B promoter decreases cholangiocarcinoma risk but increased GBC risk. rs2267401-G confers a decreased APOBEC3B promoter activity in cholangiocarcinoma cells but an increased activity in GBC cells. rs12157810-C at the APOBEC3A promoter decreases the risk of BTCs. rs12157810-C up-regulated the promoter activity in both cells. APOBEC3A overexpression attenuates cancer evolution via causing apoptosis, in contrast to APOBEC3B. Inflammatory factors promote cancer evolution via interacting with transcriptional repressors regulating the APOBEC3A/3B promoters. ATAC-seq was used to identify the difference between transcriptional networks of cholangiocarcinoma and GBC.