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TTC22 promotes m6A-mediated WTAP expression and colon cancer metastasis in an RPL4 binding-dependent pattern

Oncogene volume 41, pages 3925–3938 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

WTAP, an essential component of the RNA N-6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification complex, guides METLL3-METLL14 heteroduplexes to target RNAs in the nuclear speckles of mammalian cells. Here, we show that TTC22 is widely coexpressed with WTAP and FTO in many human tissues by mining Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) datasets. Our results indicate that the direct interaction of TTC22 with 60S ribosomal protein L4 (RPL4) promotes the binding of WTAP mRNA to RPL4, enhances the stability and translation efficiency of WTAP mRNA, and consequently increases the level of WTAP protein. Also, WTAP mRNA itself is an m6A target and YTHDF1 is characterized as an essential m6A binding protein interacting with m6A-modified WTAP mRNA. TTC22 triggers a positive feedback loop between WTAP expression and WTAP mRNA m6A modification, leading to an increased m6A level in total RNA. The knockdown of RPL4, WTAP, or YTHDF1 expression diminishes the TTC22-induced increase in the m6A level of total RNA. Thus, TTC22 caused dramatic expression changes in genes related to metabolic pathways, ribosomal biogenesis, the RNA spliceosome, and microorganism infections. Importantly, TTC22 upregulates the expression of SNAI1 by increasing m6A level and thus promotes lung metastases of colon cancer cells in mice. In conclusion, our study showed that TTC22 upregulates WTAP and SNAI1 expression, which contributes to TTC22-induced colon cancer metastasis.

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Fig. 1: Effects of TTC22 on the m6A level of total RNA in colon cancer cell lines.
Fig. 2: Effects of WTAP on TTC22-induced m6A modification of total RNA.
Fig. 3: Effects of changes in TTC22 and YTHDF1 expression on the levels of m6A-modified WTAP mRNA and WTAP protein.
Fig. 4: Characterization of the TTC22-RPL4 interaction and its effect on WTAP expression in various cell lines.
Fig. 5: Comparisons of the TTC22-RPL4 binding potential of various mutants of the TTC22 and RPL4 proteins.
Fig. 6: Effects of TTC22 on the level of SNAI1 expression in colon cancer cells.
Fig. 7: Effects of stable changes in TTC22 expression on the migration and lung metastasis of colon cancer cells.

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The original contributions represented in the study are included in the article/Supplemental Tables S1–S5

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Xiao-Xin Sun from Oregon Health & Science University for kindly providing us with plasmids containing full-length RPL4 and four RPL4 truncation mutants. We also thank Dr. Shengyan Xiang from Moffitt Cancer Center, USA for English language editing.

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81372592) and from Beijing Hospitals Authority’ Mission Plan (SML20191101) to DD and by a grant from the Peking University Medicine Fund of Fostering Young Scholars’ Scientific & Technological Innovation and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (BMU2020PY005) to WT. An Open access license has not been selected.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Carcinogenesis and Translational Research (MOE/Beijing), Division of Etiology, Peking University Cancer Hospital and Institute, Beijing, 100142, China

    Abin You, Wei Tian, Hongfan Yuan, Liankun Gu, Jing Zhou & Dajun Deng

  2. Department of Medical Oncology, Xiamen Key Laboratory of Antitumor Drug Transformation Research, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361003, China

    Abin You

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Personalized Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 211166, China

    Dajun Deng

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Contributions

DJD was responsible for designing the study, analyzing various RNA-seq datasets, interpreting the results, obtaining the main financial support, and writing the manuscript. WT was responsible for performing part of the experiments, interpreting the results, obtaining partial financial support, and writing the manuscript. ABY was responsible for performing most experiments and interpreting the results. HFY and LKG contributed to the animal experiments. JZ analyzed the expression levels of the TTC22 and WTAP genes in human tissue samples.

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Correspondence to Wei Tian or Dajun Deng.

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You, A., Tian, W., Yuan, H. et al. TTC22 promotes m6A-mediated WTAP expression and colon cancer metastasis in an RPL4 binding-dependent pattern. Oncogene 41, 3925–3938 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-022-02402-x

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