Project description:Unscheduled R-loops are a major source of replication stress and DNA damage. R-loop-induced replication defects are sensed and suppressed by ATR kinase, whereas it is not known whether R-loop itself is actively involved in ATR activation and, if so, how this is achieved. Here, we report that the nuclear form of RNA-editing enzyme ADAR1 promotes ATR activation and resolves genome-wide R-loops, a process that requires its double-stranded RNA-binding domains. Mechanistically, ADAR1 interacts with TOPBP1 and facilitates its loading on perturbed replication forks by enhancing the association of TOPBP1 with RAD9 of the 9-1-1 complex. When replication is inhibited, DNA-RNA hybrid competes with TOPBP1 for ADAR1 binding to promote the translocation of ADAR1 from damaged fork to R-loop region. There, ADAR1 recruits RNA helicases DHX9 and DDX21 to unwind R-loops, simultaneously allowing TOPBP1 to stimulate ATR more efficiently. Collectively, we propose that the tempo-spatially regulated assembly of ADAR1-nucleated protein complexes link R-loop clearance and ATR activation, while R-loops crosstalk with blocked replication forks by transposing ADAR1 to finetune ATR activity and safeguard the genome.
Project description:As a part of the project looking into the role of ATR in regulating replication initiation, we report the replication timing analysis of the U2OS cells treated with ATR kinase inhibitor AZD6738
Project description:as a part of the project looking into the role of ATR in regulating replication initiation and to investigate the rapid replication of CD8+ T cells, we report the replication timing analysis of murine CD8+ T cells and fibroblasts treated with ATR kinase inhibitor AZD6738
Project description:Adenosine (A)-to-inosine (I) RNA editing is the most prevalent RNA editing mechanism, in which adenosine deaminase acting on RNA 1 (ADAR1) is a major adenosine deaminase. Increasing evidence suggests that editing dysregulation of ADAR1 plays an important role in human tumorigenesis, while the underlying mechanism remains elusive. Here, we demonstrated that ADAR1 was highly expressed in ovarian cancer tissues and negatively correlated with progression free survival of ovarian cancer patients. Importantly, silence of ADAR1 repressed ovarian cancer cell growth and colony formation in vitro and inhibited ovarian cancer cell tumorigenesis in vivo. Further cell cycle and transcriptome profile analysis revealed that silence of ADAR1 in ovarian cancer cells induced cell cycle arrest at G1/G0 stage. Mechanistically, loss of ADAR1 caused R-loop abnormal accumulation, thereby contributing to single stand DNA break and ATR pathway activation. Additionally, ADAR1 interacted with DHX9 to regulate R-loop complex formation, and A-to-I editing of nascent RNA repressed R-loop formation during co-transcriptional process. Together, our results identify a novel ADAR1/R-loop/ATR axis critical for ovarian cancer progression and a potential target for ovarian cancer therapy.
Project description:In this study we show that intronic and intergenic SINE elements, specifically inverted repeats (IR) Alus, are the major source of drug-induced immunogenic dsRNA. These IR-Alus are frequently located downstream of ‘orphan’ CpG Islands (CGIs). In mammals, the enzyme Adenosine Deaminases Acting on RNA (ADAR1) targets and destabilizes IR-Alu dsRNA, which prevents activation of MDA5. We found that ADAR1 establishes a negative feedback loop, restricting the viral mimicry response to epigenetic therapy. Depletion of ADAR1 in patient-derived cancer cells potentiates the efficacy of epigenetic therapy, restraining tumour growth and reducing cancer initiation. Thus, epigenetic therapies trigger viral mimicry by inducing a subset of IR-Alus, leading to an ADAR1 dependency. Our findings suggest that combining epigenetic therapies with ADAR1 inhibitors represents a promising new strategy for cancer treatment.
Project description:Aberrant RNA-editing was observed in several human tumors, but its significance is mostly unknown. Here we show that ADAR1, a ubiquitous RNA-editing enzyme, is commonly lost in metastatic melanoma cells and specimens. Experimental ADAR1 silencing significantly alters melanoma cell morphology, facilitates proliferation and cell-cycle, and increases the tumorigenicity in-vivo. A series of ADAR1 truncation mutants establishes a novel RNA-editing-independent role for ADAR1 in controlling the nuclear and cytoplasmic processing steps of miRNA biogenesis. Altered expression of ADAR1-controled miRNAs accounts for the observed phenotype. We show that the oncogenic miR-17-5p endogenously regulates ADAR1 expression and that its genomic sequence is frequently amplified in melanoma to overexpress the mature miR-17-5p form. ADAR1 and miR-17-5p are ubiquitously expressed, suggesting the generality of this mechanism. Melanoma cell line expressing low ADAR1 levels (ADAR1-Knockdown) using shRNA technique were selected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We sought to examine the alterations in the genes and microRNA expression profile in the manipulated cell system, due to ADAR1 possible involvement cancer development. To that end, we selected ADAR1-knockdown (ADAR1-KD) cells that demonstrated an enhanced aggressive phenotype both in vivo and in vitro as compared to the control cells (Control).
Project description:RNAseq analysis of cell lines with ADAR1-p150 and ADAR1-p110 knock-outs and primary human tissue samples (from GSE57353 and GSE99392 data sets) to identify sites of ADAR1 editing
Project description:Adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (Adar1 and Adar2) catalyze I-to-A RNA editing, a post-transcriptional mechanism involved in multiple cellular functions. The role of Adar1-dependent RNA editing in cardiomyocytes (CMs) remains unclear. Here we show that conditional deletion of Adar1 in CMs results in myocarditis progressively evolving into dilated cardiomyopathy and heart failure at only 6 months of age. Adar1 depletion drives activation of interferon signaling genes (ISGs) in the absence of apoptosis and cytokine activation, and reduces the hypertrophic response of CMs upon pressure overload. Interestingly, ablation of the cytosolic sensor MDA5 prevents cardiac ISG activation and delays disease onset, but does not rescue the long-term lethal phenotype elicited by conditional deletion of Adar1. Retention of a single catalytically inactive Adar1 allele in CMs, in combination with MDA5 depletion, however, completely restores the cardiac function and prevents heart failure. Finally, ablation of interferon regulatory factor 7 (Irf7) attenuates the phenotype of Adar1-deficient CMs to a similar extent as MDA5 depletion, highlighting Irf7 as the main regulator of the immune response triggered by lack of Adar1 in CMs.
Project description:The ATR kinase, which coordinates cellular responses to DNA replication stress, is also essential for the proliferation of normal unstressed cells. Although its role in the replication stress response is well defined, the mechanisms by which ATR supports normal cell proliferation remain elusive. Here, we show that Atr is dispensable for the viability of G0-arrested naïve B cells. However, upon cytokine-induced proliferation, Atr-deficient B cells initiate DNA replication efficiently in early S phase, but by mid-S phase they display dNTP depletion, fork stalling, and replication failure. Nonetheless, productive DNA replication can be restored in Atr-deficient cells by pathways that suppress origin firing, such as downregulation of CDC7 and CDK1 kinase activities. Together, these findings indicate that ATR supports the proliferation of normal unstressed cells by tempering the pace of origin firing during the early S phase to avoid exhaustion of dNTPs and other replication factors.