Abstract 3346: PRMT5-mediated methylation of YBX1 regulates NF-kB activity in colorectal cancer

Abstract

Abstract Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US with a staggeringly less than 14% survival rate for patients with metastatic disease. This poor clinical outcome for CRC patients is largely attributed to the lack of understanding of the factors that drive CRC progression, leading to a dearth of available treatment strategies for this disease. Today, treatment modalities and clinical management of colorectal cancer (CRC) are fundamentally based on the success of controlling specific tumorigenic pathways. Interestingly, aberrant activation of the transcription factor nuclear factor ĸB (NF-ĸB) is increasingly recognized as a crucial player in CRC progression. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms underlying regulation of NF-ĸB holds great promise for devising new therapeutic strategies for CRC. Recently, we identified the oncogenic protein, Y-box binding protein 1 (YBX1), as a novel activator of NF-κB. Since YBX1 overexpression has also been linked to poor patient outcome in CRC, we sought to further understand whether this YBX1/NF-ĸB axis could be a potential target for CRC treatment. In this study, we discovered that YBX1 is methylated on arginine 205 (YBX1-R205me2), an event that is critical for YBX1-mediated NF-ĸB activation and target gene expression. Additionally, co-immunoprecipitation studies revealed that the R205 to alanine (A) mutant (YBX1-R205A) also significantly diminished the interaction between YBX1 and the p65 subunit of the transcriptionally active NF-ĸB, demonstrating a novel mechanism by which methylation of YBX1 mediates protein-protein interactions. Overexpression of YBX1-R205A significantly attenuated the migration, proliferation, and anchorage-independent growth of a panel of CRC cells, suggesting that YBX1-R205me2 is essential to the oncogenic functions exerted by the YBX1/NF-ĸB axis in CRC. Furthermore, we revealed that protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) is responsible for the methylation of YBX1-R205. Collectively, our novel findings present a complex picture of the sophisticated regulation of NF-ĸB through PRMT5-mediated YBX1-R205 methylation and suggest that pharmacological disruption of the YBX1/NF-κB axis using PRMT5 inhibitors could serve as the basis for new therapeutics that impede YBX1/NF-κB-driven CRC progression. Citation Format: Antja-Voy Hartley, Benlian Wang, Masaru Miyagi, Rasika Mundade, James Hamilton, Tao Lu. PRMT5-mediated methylation of YBX1 regulates NF-kB activity in colorectal cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3346.