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P4HA2-induced prolyl hydroxylation suppresses YAP1-mediated prostate cancer cell migration, invasion, and metastasis

Oncogene volume 40, pages 6049–6056 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1), a key player in the Hippo pathway, has been shown to play a critical role in tumor progression. However, the role of YAP1 in prostate cancer cell invasion, migration, and metastasis is not well defined. Through functional, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and proteomic analyses, we showed that prolyl hydroxylation of YAP1 plays a critical role in the suppression of cell migration, invasion, and metastasis in prostate cancer. Knockdown (KD) or knockout (KO) of YAP1 led to an increase in cell migration, invasion, and metastasis in prostate cancer cells. Microarray analysis showed that the EMT pathway was activated in Yap1-KD cells. ChIP-seq analysis showed that YAP1 target genes are enriched in pathways regulating cell migration. Mass spectrometry analysis identified P4H prolyl hydroxylase in the YAP1 complex and YAP1 was hydroxylated at multiple proline residues. Proline-to-alanine mutations of YAP1 isoform 3 identified proline 174 as a critical residue, and its hydroxylation suppressed cell migration, invasion, and metastasis. KO of P4ha2 led to an increase in cell migration and invasion, which was reversed upon Yap1 KD. Our study identified a novel regulatory mechanism of YAP1 by which P4HA2-dependent prolyl hydroxylation of YAP1 determines its transcriptional activities and its function in prostate cancer metastasis.

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Fig. 1: YAP1 suppresses cell migration, invasion, and metastasis.
Fig. 2: Microarray, ChIP-seq, and immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry analyses.
Fig. 3: Prolyl hydroxylation of YAP1 suppressed cell migration, invasion, and metastases.
Fig. 4: P4HA2 suppresses cell migration and invasion through Yap1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ronald DePinho and Haoqiang Ying for helpful discussions, Sarah E. Townsend for editing, and Dr Timothy C. Thompson for providing RM-1 cells. GW is supported by the funding from MDACC (Moon Shot, IRG, and PCRP), UT STARs Award, NIH R00 CA194289, and P50 CA140388. SHL is supported by grants from the NIH R01CA174798 (S.-H. Lin, L.-y. Yu-Lee), NIH 5P50CA140388 (C. Logothetis, S.-H. Lin), and Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas grants RP150179 & RP190252 (S.-H. Lin and L.-Y. Yu-Lee). This study is supported by NIH P30CA016672 for the use of Research Animal Support Facility, Flow Cytometry and Cellular Imaging Core Facility, and Functional Genomics Core.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Ming Zhu, Ruiqing Peng.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and the David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Ming Zhu, Ruiqing Peng, Xin Liang, Jian H. Song, Celia Sze Ling Mak, Jiwon Park, Shui-er Zheng, Ailing Huang, Ruidong Chen, Christopher J. Logothetis, Sue-Hwa Lin & Guocan Wang

  2. Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center, State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, China

    Ruiqing Peng

  3. Department of Cancer Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Zhengdao Lan, Pingping Hou, Xingdi Ma & Guocan Wang

  4. Department of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Ming Tang & Qing Chang

  5. Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis & Epigenomics Profiling Core Facility, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Abhinav K. Jain

  6. Department of Translational Molecular Pathology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Sue-Hwa Lin

  7. Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Hiroyuki Katayama & Samir Hanash

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Contributions

MZ and GW contributed to the study’s conception and design of this study. GW, MZ, RP, XL, ZL, MT, PH, JHS, CSLM, JP, SZ, AH, XM, RC, QC, AKJ, and HK performed the experiments and acquired, analyzed, and interpreted the data (e.g., statistical analysis, biostatistics, computational analysis). CJL, SH, and GW contributed to the supervision of the project. S-HL and GW contributed to the writing and editing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Guocan Wang.

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CJL reports receiving commercial research grants from Bayer, Sanofi, Janssen, Astellas Pharma, Pfizer; and honoraria from Bayer, Janssen, Sanofi, Astellas Pharma. No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed by the other authors.

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Zhu, M., Peng, R., Liang, X. et al. P4HA2-induced prolyl hydroxylation suppresses YAP1-mediated prostate cancer cell migration, invasion, and metastasis. Oncogene 40, 6049–6056 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-021-02000-3

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