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Mcph1/Brit1 deficiency promotes genomic instability and tumor formation in a mouse model

Oncogene volume 34, pages 4368–4378 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

MCPH1, also known as BRIT1, has recently been identified as a novel key regulatory gene of the DNA damage response pathway. MCPH1 is located on human chromosome 8p23.1, where human cancers frequently show loss of heterozygosity. As such, MCPH1 is aberrantly expressed in many malignancies, including breast and ovarian cancers, and the function of MCPH1 has been implicated in tumor suppression. However, it remains poorly understood whether MCPH1 deficiency leads to tumorigenesis. Here we generated and studied both Mcph1−/− and Mcph1−/−p53−/− mice; we showed that Mcph1−/− mice developed tumors with long latency, and that primary lymphoma developed significantly earlier in Mcph1−/−p53−/− mice than in Mcph11+/+p53−/− and Mcph1+/−p53−/− mice. The Mcph1−/−p53−/− lymphomas and derived murine embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) were both more sensitive to irradiation. Mcph1 deficiency resulted in remarkably increased chromosome and chromatid breaks in Mcph1−/−p53−/− lymphomas and MEFs, as determined by metaphase spread assay and spectral karyotyping analysis. In addition, Mcph1 deficiency significantly enhanced aneuploidy as well as abnormal centrosome multiplication in Mcph1−/−p53−/− cells. Meanwhile, Mcph1 deficiency impaired double strand break (DSB) repair in Mcph1−/−p53−/− MEFs as demonstrated by neutral Comet assay. Compared with Mcph1+/+p53−/− MEFs, homologous recombination and non-homologous end-joining activities were significantly decreased in Mcph1−/−p53−/− MEFs. Notably, reconstituted MCPH1 rescued the defects of DSB repair and alleviated chromosomal aberrations in Mcph1−/−p53−/− MEFs. Taken together, our data demonstrate MCPH1 deficiency promotes genomic instability and increases cancer susceptibility. Our study using knockout mouse models provides convincing genetic evidence that MCPH1 is a bona fide tumor suppressor gene. Its deficiency leading to defective DNA repair in tumors can be used to develop novel targeted cancer therapies in the future.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health to KL (R01-CA155151 and R21-CA161513), a grant from the St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital McDonald Research Foundation to KL and a grant from National Natural Science Foundation of China (to YL, 81372589). We thank BCM Cytometry and Cell Sorting Core (NCRR S10RR024574, NIAID AI036211 and NCI P30CA125123) and Molecular Morphology Core Laboratory (PHS DK56338) for technical assistance. We also thank Drs Zhijie Li, Han Lin, Ana Rodríguez (all from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA) and Guang Peng (UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA) for providing anti-CD4/CD8 antibodies (ZL), assisting in NHEJ analysis (HL), editing of this manuscript (AR) and providing HR-related plasmids (GP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    Y Liang, H Gao, J A Goss & K Li

  2. School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Taishan Medical University, Tai’an, Shandong, China

    Y Liang

  3. Department of Systems Biology, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    S-Y Lin

  4. Departments of Cancer and Cell Biology, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA

    C Du

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Correspondence to K Li.

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Liang, Y., Gao, H., Lin, SY. et al. Mcph1/Brit1 deficiency promotes genomic instability and tumor formation in a mouse model. Oncogene 34, 4368–4378 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2014.367

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