Project description:Cleavave Under Targets and Tagmentation (CUT&TAG) sequencing for YAP, H3K27ac, and H3K27me3 of tongue epithelia-derived, transgene-selected primarily cultured cells from control mice or transgenic mice expressing HPV16E6-E7 and YAP1S127A
Project description:Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a prevalent form of cancer that develops from the epithelium of the oral cavity. OSCC is on the rise worldwide, and death rates associated with the disease are particularly high. Despite progress in understanding of the mutational and expression landscape associated with OSCC, advances in deciphering these alterations for the development of therapeutic strategies have been limited. Further insight into the molecular cues that contribute to OSCC is therefore required. Here we show that the transcriptional regulators YAP (YAP1) and TAZ (WWTR1), which are key effectors of the Hippo pathway, drive pro-tumorigenic signals in OSCC. Regions of pre-malignant oral tissues exhibit aberrant nuclear YAP accumulation, suggesting that dysregulated YAP activity contributes to the onset of OSCC. Supporting this premise, we determined that nuclear YAP and TAZ activity drives OSCC cell proliferation, survival, and migration in vitro, and is required for OSCC tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. Global gene expression profiles associated with YAP and TAZ knockdown revealed changes in the control of gene expression implicated in pro-tumorigenic signaling, including those required for cell cycle progression and survival. Notably, the transcriptional signature regulated by YAP and TAZ significantly correlates with gene expression changes occurring in human OSCCs identified by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), emphasizing a central role for YAP and TAZ in OSCC biology. Expression profiling was conducted following the repression of the transcriptional regulators TAZ and YAP (YAP/TAZ) in human SCC2 oral cancer cells. Human SCC2 oral cancer cells were transfected with control siRNA, or siRNAs targeting TAZ, YAP, or YAP/TAZ for 48 hours. Total RNA from three independent experiments carried out on separate days was isolated and purified and the samples were then profiled on Affymetrix Human Gene 2.0 Chips at the Boston University Microarray Core. The expression profiles were processed and normalized using the Robust Multi-array Average (RMA) procedure (23) based on a custom Brainarray CDF (24). For each of the siRNA experiments, signatures of genes differentially expressed between treatment and corresponding siRNA control with an FDR q-value ?0.05 and a fold change ?2 were identified as either activated (up-regulated in control) or repressed (up-regulated in treatment). The overlap between the differentially expressed gene signatures was evaluated by Fisher test. Hierarchical gene and sample clustering was performed on the top 3000 genes with highest median absolute deviation (MAD; a robust version of the variance) across 12 samples, using “ward” as the agglomeration rule, and 1 minus Pearson correlation and Euclidean as the distance measures for genes and samples, respectively.
Project description:Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a prevalent form of cancer that develops from the epithelium of the oral cavity. OSCC is on the rise worldwide, and death rates associated with the disease are particularly high. Despite progress in understanding of the mutational and expression landscape associated with OSCC, advances in deciphering these alterations for the development of therapeutic strategies have been limited. Further insight into the molecular cues that contribute to OSCC is therefore required. Here we show that the transcriptional regulators YAP (YAP1) and TAZ (WWTR1), which are key effectors of the Hippo pathway, drive pro-tumorigenic signals in OSCC. Regions of pre-malignant oral tissues exhibit aberrant nuclear YAP accumulation, suggesting that dysregulated YAP activity contributes to the onset of OSCC. Supporting this premise, we determined that nuclear YAP and TAZ activity drives OSCC cell proliferation, survival, and migration in vitro, and is required for OSCC tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. Global gene expression profiles associated with YAP and TAZ knockdown revealed changes in the control of gene expression implicated in pro-tumorigenic signaling, including those required for cell cycle progression and survival. Notably, the transcriptional signature regulated by YAP and TAZ significantly correlates with gene expression changes occurring in human OSCCs identified by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), emphasizing a central role for YAP and TAZ in OSCC biology. Expression profiling was conducted following the repression of the transcriptional regulators TAZ and YAP (YAP/TAZ) in human SCC2 oral cancer cells.
Project description:Assay for Transposase Accessible Chromatin (ATAC) sequencing of tongue epithelia-derived, transgene-selected primarily cultured cells from control mice or transgenic mice expressing HPV16E6-E7 and YAP1S127A
Project description:Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) are highly aggressive Schwann cell (SC)-lineage derived sarcomas with poor prognosis. The molecular events underlying SC lineage cells-to-MPNST transformation remain elusive. Here, we show that human MPNSTs exhibit elevated HIPPO-TAZ/YAP expression, and that TAZ/YAP hyperactivity in SCs caused by Lats1/2 loss potently induces high-grade nerve-associated tumors with full penetrance. Lats1/2 deficiency reprograms SCs to a cancerous, progenitor-like phenotype and promotes hyper-proliferation. Conversely, disruption of TAZ/YAP activity alleviates tumor burden in Lats1/2-deficient mice and inhibits human MPNST cell proliferation. Moreover, genome-wide target profiling reveals that TAZ/YAP-TEAD1 directly activates a set of oncogenic programs in SCs including PDGFR/RAF signaling. Co-targeting TAZ/YAP and PDGFR/RAF signaling efficaciously reduces tumorigenicity in Lats1/2-deficient tumors. Thus, our findings establish a previously unrecognized convergence between LATS1/2-TAZ/YAP pathway and MPNST pathogenesis, suggesting that combined inhibition of TAZ/YAP-PDGFR/RAF signaling may be beneficial in MPNSTs.
Project description:Bulk RNA sequencing of tongue epithelia-derived, transgene-selected primarily cultured cells from control mice or transgenic mice expressing HPV16E6-E7 and YAP1S127A