{"title":"A novel TOX3-WDR5-ABCG2 signaling axis regulates the progression of colorectal cancer by accelerating stem-like traits and chemoresistance.","authors":"Jiaojiao Hao, Jinsheng Huang, Chunyu Hua, Yan Zuo, Wendan Yu, Xiaojun Wu, Liren Li, Guoqing Xue, Xinyu Wan, Liyuan Ru, Ziyue Guo, Shilong Han, Wuguo Deng, Fei Lin, Wei Guo","doi":"10.1371/journal.pbio.3002256","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The eradication of cancer stem cells (CSCs) with drug resistance confers the probability of local tumor control after chemotherapy or targeted therapy. As the main drug resistance marker, ABCG2 is also critical for colorectal cancer (CRC) evolution, in particular cancer stem-like traits expansion. Hitherto, the knowledge about the expression regulation of ABCG2, in particular its upstream transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, remains limited in cancer, including CRC. Here, ABCG2 was found to be markedly up-regulated in CRC CSCs (cCSCs) expansion and chemo-resistant CRC tissues and closely associated with CRC recurrence. Mechanistically, TOX3 was identified as a specific transcriptional factor to drive ABCG2 expression and subsequent cCSCs expansion and chemoresistance by binding to -261 to -141 segments of the ABCG2 promoter region. Moreover, we found that TOX3 recruited WDR5 to promote tri-methylation of H3K4 at the ABCG2 promoter in cCSCs, which further confers stem-like traits and chemoresistance to CRC by co-regulating the transcription of ABCG2. In line with this observation, TOX3, WDR5, and ABCG2 showed abnormal activation in chemo-resistant tumor tissues of in situ CRC mouse model and clinical investigation further demonstrated the comprehensive assessment of TOX3, WDR5, and ABCG2 could be a more efficient strategy for survival prediction of CRC patients with recurrence or metastasis. Thus, our study found that TOX3-WDR5/ABCG2 signaling axis plays a critical role in regulating CRC stem-like traits and chemoresistance, and a combination of chemotherapy with WDR5 inhibitors may induce synthetic lethality in ABCG2-deregulated tumors.</p>","PeriodicalId":20240,"journal":{"name":"PLoS Biology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10501593/pdf/","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"PLoS Biology","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002256","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/9/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOCHEMISTRY & MOLECULAR BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
The eradication of cancer stem cells (CSCs) with drug resistance confers the probability of local tumor control after chemotherapy or targeted therapy. As the main drug resistance marker, ABCG2 is also critical for colorectal cancer (CRC) evolution, in particular cancer stem-like traits expansion. Hitherto, the knowledge about the expression regulation of ABCG2, in particular its upstream transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, remains limited in cancer, including CRC. Here, ABCG2 was found to be markedly up-regulated in CRC CSCs (cCSCs) expansion and chemo-resistant CRC tissues and closely associated with CRC recurrence. Mechanistically, TOX3 was identified as a specific transcriptional factor to drive ABCG2 expression and subsequent cCSCs expansion and chemoresistance by binding to -261 to -141 segments of the ABCG2 promoter region. Moreover, we found that TOX3 recruited WDR5 to promote tri-methylation of H3K4 at the ABCG2 promoter in cCSCs, which further confers stem-like traits and chemoresistance to CRC by co-regulating the transcription of ABCG2. In line with this observation, TOX3, WDR5, and ABCG2 showed abnormal activation in chemo-resistant tumor tissues of in situ CRC mouse model and clinical investigation further demonstrated the comprehensive assessment of TOX3, WDR5, and ABCG2 could be a more efficient strategy for survival prediction of CRC patients with recurrence or metastasis. Thus, our study found that TOX3-WDR5/ABCG2 signaling axis plays a critical role in regulating CRC stem-like traits and chemoresistance, and a combination of chemotherapy with WDR5 inhibitors may induce synthetic lethality in ABCG2-deregulated tumors.
期刊介绍:
PLOS Biology is an open-access, peer-reviewed general biology journal published by PLOS, a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians dedicated to making the world's scientific and medical literature freely accessible. The journal publishes new articles online weekly, with issues compiled and published monthly.
ISSN Numbers:
eISSN: 1545-7885
ISSN: 1544-9173