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USP29 coordinates MYC and HIF1α stabilization to promote tumor metabolism and progression

Oncogene volume 40, pages 6417–6429 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Tumor cells must rewire cellular metabolism to satisfy the demands of unbridled growth and proliferation. How these metabolic processes are integrated to fuel cancer cell growth remains largely unknown. Deciphering the regulatory mechanisms is vital to develop targeted strategies for tumor-selective therapies. We herein performed an unbiased and functional siRNA screen against 96 deubiquitinases, which play indispensable roles in cancer and are emerging as therapeutic targets, and identified USP29 as a top candidate essential for metabolic reprogramming that support biosynthesis and survival in tumor cells. Integrated metabolic flux analysis and molecular investigation reveal that USP29 directly deubiquitinates and stabilizes MYC and HIF1α, two master regulators of metabolic reprogramming, enabling adaptive response of tumor cells in both normoxia and hypoxia. Systemic knockout of Usp29 depleted MYC and HIF1α in MYC-driven neuroblastoma and B cell lymphoma, inhibited critical metabolic targets and significantly prolonged survival of tumor-bearing mice. Strikingly, mice homozygous null for the Usp29 gene are viable, fertile, and display no gross phenotypic abnormalities. Altogether, these results demonstrate that USP29 selectively coordinates MYC and HIF1α to integrate metabolic processes critical for cancer cell growth, and therapeutic targeting of USP29, a potentially targetable enzyme, could create a unique vulnerability given deregulation of MYC and HIF1α frequently occurs in human cancers.

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Fig. 1: siRNA screening reveals USP29 as a key regulator of tumor cell metabolic reprogramming.
Fig. 2: USP29 depletion suppresses MYC and HIF1α transcriptional programs.
Fig. 3: USP29 deficiency impairs MYC and HIF1α protein stability.
Fig. 4: USP29 interacts with and deubiquitinates MYC/HIF1α proteins.
Fig. 5: The MYC-JTV1 axis activates USP29 transcription.
Fig. 6: USP29 promotes MYC mediated tumorigenesis.
Fig. 7: A simplified model depicting regulation of metabolic reprogramming by the USP29-MYC/HIF1α axis.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all members of the Qing lab for helpful suggestions, the Core Facility of Medical Research Institute at Wuhan University for providing hypoxia workstations and histology platform. We also thank Dr William A. Weiss (University of California, San Francisco) for providing transgenic TH-MYCN mice, Dr Wuhan Xiao (Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for providing transgenic Eμ-Myc mice. This study was supported by grants from National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFA0505600 to G.Q.), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81970152, 81770177 to H.L., 81830084 to G.Q.), National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholar (81725013 to G.Q., 82025003 to H.L.).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Rongfu Tu, Wenqian Kang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urology, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, 430071, Wuhan, China

    Rongfu Tu, Wenqian Kang & Guoliang Qing

  2. Frontier Science Center for Immunology and Metabolism, Medical Research Institute, Wuhan University, 430071, Wuhan, China

    Rongfu Tu, Wenqian Kang, Mengjie Yang, Liyuan Wang, Qing Bao, Zhi Chen, Yang Dong, Jingchao Wang, Jue Jiang, Hudan Liu & Guoliang Qing

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Contributions

G.Q. and R.T. conceived and designed the study. G.Q. and H.L. supervised the study. H.L., G.Q., R.T., and W.K. wrote the manuscript. R.T. and W.K. performed most of the experiments. M.Y., L.W., and Y.D. provided technical assistance for mice experiments. Q.B. conducted molecular cloning experiments. Z.C. provided technical assistance for hypoxic experiments. J.W. and J.J carried out ChIP experiments and cell culture. All authors read and approved the final paper.

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Correspondence to Guoliang Qing.

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All animal experiments were performed following the university laboratory animal guidelines and approved by the Animal Experimentations Ethics Committee of Wuhan University School of Medicine.

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Tu, R., Kang, W., Yang, M. et al. USP29 coordinates MYC and HIF1α stabilization to promote tumor metabolism and progression. Oncogene 40, 6417–6429 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-021-02031-w

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