Tumor Suppressor DEAR1 Regulates Mammary Epithelial Cell Fate and Predicts Early Onset and Metastasis in Triple Negative Breast Cancer

Authors

Uyen Q Le
Nanyue Chen
Seetharaman Balasenthil
Eugene Lurie
Fei Yang
Suyu Liu
Laura Rubin
Luisa Maren Solis Soto
Maria Gabriela Raso
Harsh Batra
Aysegul A Sahin
Ignacio I Wistuba
Ann McNeill Killary

Publication Date

11-14-2022

Journal

Scientific Reports

Abstract

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a disease of poor prognosis, with the majority classified as the basal-like subtype associated with epithelial-mesenchymal transition and metastasis. Because basal breast cancers originate from proliferative luminal progenitor-like cells upon dysregulation of proper luminal differentiation, genes regulating luminal-basal transition are critical to elucidate novel therapeutic targets to improve TNBC outcomes. Herein we demonstrate that the tumor suppressor DEAR1/TRIM62 is a critical regulator of luminal cell fate. DEAR1 loss in human mammary epithelial cells results in significantly enhanced mammosphere formation that is accelerated in the presence of TGF-β/SMAD3 signaling. Mammospheres formed following DEAR1 loss are enriched for ALDH1A1 and CK5 expression, EpCAM-/CD49f+ and CD44high/24low basal-like epithelial cells, indicating that DEAR1 regulates stem/progenitor cell properties and luminal-basal progenitor transition. We show that DEAR1 maintains luminal differentiation as a novel ubiquitin ligase for SNAI2/SLUG, a master regulator driving stemness and generation of basal-like progenitor populations. We also identify a significant inverse correlation between DEAR1 and SNAI2 expression in a 103 TNBC case cohort and show that low DEAR1 expression significantly correlates with young age of onset and shorter time to metastasis, suggesting DEAR1 could serve as a biomarker to stratify early onset TNBCs for targeted stem cell therapies.

Keywords

Humans, Female, Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms, Breast Neoplasms, Breast, Epithelial Cells, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, Cell Differentiation, Cell Line, Tumor, Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic

Comments

Supplementary Material

PMID: 36376460

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-22417-4

PMID

36376460

PMCID

PMC9663828

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

November 2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Post-print

Published Open-Access

yes