RESEARCH ARTICLE The asymmetrically segregating lncRNA cherub is required for transforming stem cells into malignant cells Lisa Landskron1, Victoria Steinmann1, Francois Bonnay1, Thomas R Burkard1, Jonas Steinmann1, Ilka Reichardt1, Heike Harzer1, Anne-Sophie Laurenson2, Heinrich Reichert2, Ju¨ rgen A Knoblich1* 1IMBA, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria; 2Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Abstract Tumor cells display features that are not found in healthy cells. How they become immortal and how their specific features can be exploited to combat tumorigenesis are key questions in tumor biology. Here we describe the long non-coding RNA cherub that is critically required for the development of brain tumors in Drosophila but is dispensable for normal development. In mitotic Drosophila neural stem cells, cherub localizes to the cell periphery and segregates into the differentiating daughter cell. During tumorigenesis, de-differentiation of cherub-high cells leads to the formation of tumorigenic stem cells that accumulate abnormally high cherub levels. We show that cherub establishes a molecular link between the RNA-binding proteins Staufen and Syncrip. As Syncrip is part of the molecular machinery specifying temporal identity in neural stem cells, we propose that tumor cells proliferate indefinitely, because cherub accumulation no longer allows them to complete their temporal neurogenesis program. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.31347.001 *For correspondence:
[email protected]. Introduction at Throughout the animal kingdom, stem cells supply tissues with specialized cells. They can do this Competing interests: The because they have the unique ability to both replicate themselves (an ability termed self-renewal authors declare that no (Smith, 2006)) and to simultaneously generate other daughter cells with a more restricted develop- competing interests exist.