Investigating the Regulation and Function of the NR4A Nuclear Receptors in Cancer Jordan A
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University of Tennessee Health Science Center UTHSC Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations (ETD) College of Graduate Health Sciences 5-2016 Investigating the Regulation and Function of the NR4A Nuclear Receptors in Cancer Jordan A. Beard University of Tennessee Health Science Center Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uthsc.edu/dissertations Part of the Medical Cell Biology Commons, and the Medical Molecular Biology Commons Recommended Citation Beard, Jordan A. (http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0281-1432), "Investigating the Regulation and Function of the NR4A Nuclear Receptors in Cancer" (2016). Theses and Dissertations (ETD). Paper 378. http://dx.doi.org/10.21007/etd.cghs.2016.0391. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Graduate Health Sciences at UTHSC Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations (ETD) by an authorized administrator of UTHSC Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Investigating the Regulation and Function of the NR4A Nuclear Receptors in Cancer Document Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Program Biomedical Sciences Track Molecular Therapeutics and Cell Signaling Research Advisor Taosheng Chen, Ph.D. Committee Leonard Lothstein, Ph.D. Leta Nutt, Ph.D. Edwards A. Park, Ph.D. Gerard P. Zambetti, Ph.D. ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0281-1432 DOI 10.21007/etd.cghs.2016.0391 This dissertation is available at UTHSC Digital Commons: https://dc.uthsc.edu/dissertations/378 Investigating the Regulation and Function of the NR4A Nuclear Receptors in Cancer A Dissertation Presented for The Graduate Studies Council The University of Tennessee Health Science Center In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy From The University of Tennessee By Jordan A. Beard May 2016 Chapter 2 © 2015 by Elsevier Inc. All other material © 2016 by Jordan A. Beard. All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my loving wife, Carrie Beard, and my family for their love and support during my time in graduate school. I fully appreciate your continued encouragement throughout this journey. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I want to thank my mentor, Dr. Taosheng Chen. Over the past six years, he has provided me with his overwhelming support and an outstanding laboratory environment in which I could learn and grow into the scientist that I am today. My success in the lab and in my scientific career can be attributed to his mentorship and his guidance in becoming an independent scientist. I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Drs. Leonard Lothstein, Leta Nutt, Edwards Park, and Gerard Zambetti for their guidance and constructive review of my research project. I am also grateful for your time spent on writing recommendations for travel awards and during my search for a postdoctoral fellowship. I have had the privilege of working with a great group of scientists in the department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (SJCRH). I have enjoyed the opportunity to gain feedback on my research while making great friends in the process. From the first day of my rotation, the members of the Chen research group have been the most welcoming group of people, and have taught me much and supported me greatly throughout my time in lab. I would like to give a special thank you to those members who went above and beyond to assist me, which includes Drs. Jing Wu, Ayesha Elias, Su Sien Ong, Yue-Ming Wang, Milu Cherian, and Jesse Bakke, Mrs. Alexa Farmer, Mrs. Jessica Hoyer, and Ms. Asli Goktug. A very special thank you goes to my former Pediatric Oncology Education summer student, Justin Hills. Mr. Hills was of tremendous help during the summers of 2013 and 2014. Your adeptness at the bench and in your organizational skills made my first experience as a mentor incredibly great, and I learned much about how to teach novel ideas and unfamiliar techniques to someone with an eager mind. I am grateful for your time here, and your willingness to help with the project is of great value. Other SJCRH faculty and staff have aided in my education and research. I would like to thank Dr. Mark Hatley and his lab for valuable discussions and for providing reagents that have aided in my research. SJCRH is a wonderful place to work, largely because of the great core facilities offered. I would like to thank Dr. Michael Wang and Mr. Granger Ridout of the Hartwell Center for their assistance with providing microarray processing and dataset analysis. Last but not least, I want to thank Dr. Susan Nozell at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Nozell was the first person to introduce me to hands-on biomedical research and I am grateful to have taken her Cell and Molecular Biology class. From discussions about cell signaling pathways in class, learning how to run PCR and Western blots in the lab, to demonstrating how to structure a grant application, I thank Dr. Nozell for instilling within me a passion for research. iv ABSTRACT The nuclear receptor (NR) superfamily represents a structurally-conserved group of ligand-regulated transcription factors. These proteins have critical roles in various physiological and pathological processes, including cancer, and have been targets of drug therapy. The orphan NR subfamily 4A (NR4A), which includes the NR4A1 (Nur77), NR4A2 (Nurr1), and NR4A3 (Nor-1) genes has been implicated in adult solid tumors and have been characterized as pro-tumorigenic mediator of cell proliferation, transformation, migration, and drug resistance. Alternatively, in leukemia, NR4A1 and NR4A3 have been described as tumor suppressors in hematologic malignancies. Members of the NR4A family are commonly overexpressed in cancer and this has been attributed to their regulation by other oncogenic signaling pathways. Despite the understanding of signaling cascades that lead to overexpression of the NR4A members, little is known about their regulation by microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are small, non-coding, endogenous RNAs that are transcribed, processed, and used to direct cellular proteins that destabilize or block translation of target mRNA. In this study, we first sought to determine the miRNAs that are responsible for regulating NR4A2. Using a 3ʹ UTR reporter assay, we identified miR-34 as a regulator of the NR4A2 through its 3ʹ UTR, which was confirmed using mutagenesis of the predicted binding region of the miR-34 seed region to its target site. We demonstrated that overexpression of exogenous or induction of endogenous miR-34 expression downstream of p53 activation by Nutlin-3a was associated with decreased endogenous NR4A2. Additionally, overexpression of NR4A2 was capable of suppressing the activation of p53 target genes, and was also able to attenuate the sensitivity of cells to the anti-proliferative effect of Nutlin-3a. We further explored the roles of the NR4A family in pediatric cancer, an area that has not been fully investigated. We first determined that the members of the NR4A family are overexpressed in rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) cell lines compared to normal muscle cells. Knockdown of NR4A1 or NR4A2 led to a reduction in cell proliferation and transformation, while knockdown of NR4A2 could also affect cell migration. Using a microarray approach, we sought to investigate the transcriptome-level changes in response to NR4A knockdown, and determined that knockdown of NR4A2 led to a unique gene signature, while NR4A1 and NR4A3 knockdown had large overlaps in expression changes. These unique gene expression changes in response to NR4A2 knockdown could explain the unique effects that NR4A2 has on migration. Overall, this study has discovered miR-34 as a novel regulator of NR4A2, and places NR4A2 in a potential feedback mechanism involving p53, miR-34, and NR4A2. This could indicate that NR4A2 mediates at least some of its pro-oncogenic effects through the inhibition of p53, which is relieved by p53 itself upon activation. Alternatively, NR4A2, is shown to have other roles in cancer, potentially through novel downstream target genes. These data may be used in understanding the effects of miR-34 v replacement therapy, as this method of treatment is progressing through clinical trials, allowing us to understand the diverse regulator cascades being modulated. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................1 Nuclear Receptors ............................................................................................................1 Discovery of the nuclear receptor superfamily ............................................................1 Domain structure and function .....................................................................................1 N-terminal domain and AF-1 .................................................................................. 1 DNA-binding domain ............................................................................................. 3 Ligand-binding domain and AF-2 .......................................................................... 3 Nuclear receptors and cancer .......................................................................................3 Glucocorticoid receptor .......................................................................................... 3 Estrogen receptor ...................................................................................................