Abstract PS18-49: A transcriptome approach to reveal CTDP1 knockdown induced G1 cell cycle arrest in triple negative breast cancer cells

Abstract

Abstract CTDP1 (C-terminal domain phosphatase 1) is the only phosphatase domain with a BRCT-domain and known to be associated with transcription and mitosis in eukaryotic systems. Our previous research showed that CTDP1 participates in the DNA damage response by mediating interstrand DNA repair through the Fanconi anemia pathway. This study also revealed that CTDP1 is an essential gene in breast cancer cell lines but not in normal breast derived epithelial MCF10A cells. This project aims to identify the changes in transcripts, kinases and interactors leading to the cell death induced by CTDP1 knockdown in the triple-negative breast cancer cell lines. Since RNA Pol II is one of the major targets of CTDP1 phosphatase activity, we initially hypothesized that the cellular changes were mediated by transcriptional regulation. The global transcriptomic profiling of shCTDP1 MDA-MB-231 cells detected more than 29000 gene products, where 1000 and 616 genes were found consistently up- and down-regulated, respectively. The downregulation of cell cycle-associated genes CCNA2, TOP2A and POLA1 in the MDA-MB-231 cells were confirmed with q-RT-PCR. While the upregulated genes did not show enrichment in the Reactome pathway database, the downregulated genes were significantly associated with DNA damage response, mitosis and transcription, which is consistent with the known functions of CTDP1. The transcription factor binding motifs analysis with iRegulon reveals that the E2F1 transcription activity decreased as CTDP1 was knocked down in MDA-MB-231. The subsequent cell cycle analysis supports this prediction and showed G1 arrest as CTDP1 is knocked down in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-453, but not in MCF10A. A kinase array analysis was also conducted to further identify kinases activated or deactivated as CTDP1 is knocked down. A nested network analysis of the predicted transcription factors, kinases and CTDP1 interactors is used to identify potential pathways contributing to cell death of the triple-negative breast cancer cells upon loss of CTDP1 expression. Citation Format: Henry Chun Hin Law, Nicholas Woods. A transcriptome approach to reveal CTDP1 knockdown induced G1 cell cycle arrest in triple negative breast cancer cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Virtual Symposium; 2020 Dec 8-11; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(4 Suppl):Abstract nr PS18-49.