Searching across hundreds of databases

Our searching services are busy right now. Your search will reload in five seconds.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

X
Forgot Password

If you have forgotten your password you can enter your email here and get a temporary password sent to your email.

Silencing of SRRM4 suppresses microexon inclusion and promotes tumor growth across cancers.

PLoS biology | 2021

RNA splicing is widely dysregulated in cancer, frequently due to altered expression or activity of splicing factors (SFs). Microexons are extremely small exons (3-27 nucleotides long) that are highly evolutionarily conserved and play critical roles in promoting neuronal differentiation and development. Inclusion of microexons in mRNA transcripts is mediated by the SF Serine/Arginine Repetitive Matrix 4 (SRRM4), whose expression is largely restricted to neural tissues. However, microexons have been largely overlooked in prior analyses of splicing in cancer, as their small size necessitates specialized computational approaches for their detection. Here, we demonstrate that despite having low expression in normal nonneural tissues, SRRM4 is further silenced in tumors, resulting in the suppression of normal microexon inclusion. Remarkably, SRRM4 is the most consistently silenced SF across all tumor types analyzed, implying a general advantage of microexon down-regulation in cancer independent of its tissue of origin. We show that this silencing is favorable for tumor growth, as decreased SRRM4 expression in tumors is correlated with an increase in mitotic gene expression, and up-regulation of SRRM4 in cancer cell lines dose-dependently inhibits proliferation in vitro and in a mouse xenograft model. Further, this proliferation inhibition is accompanied by induction of neural-like expression and splicing patterns in cancer cells, suggesting that SRRM4 expression shifts the cell state away from proliferation and toward differentiation. We therefore conclude that SRRM4 acts as a proliferation brake, and tumors gain a selective advantage by cutting off this brake.

Pubmed ID: 33621242 RIS Download

Publication data is provided by the National Library of Medicine ® and PubMed ®. Data is retrieved from PubMed ® on a weekly schedule. For terms and conditions see the National Library of Medicine Terms and Conditions.

This is a list of tools and resources that we have found mentioned in this publication.


ATCC (tool)

RRID:SCR_001672

Global nonprofit biological resource center (BRC) and research organization that provides biological products, technical services and educational programs to private industry, government and academic organizations. Its mission is to acquire, authenticate, preserve, develop and distribute biological materials, information, technology, intellectual property and standards for the advancement and application of scientific knowledge. The primary purpose of ATCC is to use its resources and experience as a BRC to become the world leader in standard biological reference materials management, intellectual property resource management and translational research as applied to biomaterial development, standardization and certification. ATCC characterizes cell lines, bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa, as well as develops and evaluates assays and techniques for validating research resources and preserving and distributing biological materials to the public and private sector research communities.

View all literature mentions

Addgene (tool)

RRID:SCR_002037

Non-profit plasmid repository dedicated to helping scientists around the world share high-quality plasmids. Facilitates archiving and distributing DNA-based research reagents and associated data to scientists worldwide. Repository contains over 65,000 plasmids, including special collections on CRISPR, fluorescent proteins, and ready-to-use viral preparations. There is no cost for scientists to deposit plasmids, which saves time and money associated with shipping plasmids themselves. All plasmids are fully sequenced for validation and sequencing data is openly available. We handle the appropriate Material Transfer Agreements (MTA) with institutions, facilitating open exchange and offering intellectual property and liability protection for depositing scientists. Furthermore, we curate free educational resources for the scientific community including a blog, eBooks, video protocols, and detailed molecular biology resources.

View all literature mentions

Cytoscape (tool)

RRID:SCR_003032

Software platform for complex network analysis and visualization. Used for visualization of molecular interaction networks and biological pathways and integrating these networks with annotations, gene expression profiles and other state data.

View all literature mentions

Clontech (tool)

RRID:SCR_004423

An Antibody supplier

View all literature mentions

ClueGO (tool)

RRID:SCR_005748

A Cytoscape plug-in that visualizes the non-redundant biological terms for large clusters of genes in a functionally grouped network. It can be used in combination with GOlorize. The identifiers can be uploaded from a text file or interactively from a network of Cytoscape. The type of identifiers supported can be easily extended by the user. ClueGO performs single cluster analysis and comparison of clusters. From the ontology sources used, the terms are selected by different filter criteria. The related terms which share similar associated genes can be combined to reduce redundancy. The ClueGO network is created with kappa statistics and reflects the relationships between the terms based on the similarity of their associated genes. On the network, the node colour can be switched between functional groups and clusters distribution. ClueGO charts are underlying the specificity and the common aspects of the biological role. The significance of the terms and groups is automatically calculated. ClueGO is easy updatable with the newest files from Gene Ontology and KEGG. Platform: Windows compatible, Mac OS X compatible, Linux compatible, Unix compatible

View all literature mentions

Synapse (tool)

RRID:SCR_006307

A cloud-based collaborative platform which co-locates data, code, and computing resources for analyzing genome-scale data and seamlessly integrates these services allowing scientists to share and analyze data together. Synapse consists of a web portal integrated with the R/Bioconductor statistical package and will be integrated with additional tools. The web portal is organized around the concept of a Project which is an environment where you can interact, share data, and analysis methods with a specific group of users or broadly across open collaborations. Projects provide an organizational structure to interact with data, code and analyses, and to track data provenance. A project can be created by anyone with a Synapse account and can be shared among all Synapse users or restricted to a specific team. Public data projects include the Synapse Commons Repository (SCR) (syn150935) and the metaGenomics project (syn275039). The SCR provides access to raw data and phenotypic information for publicly available genomic data sets, such as GEO and TCGA. The metaGenomics project provides standardized preprocessed data and precomputed analysis of the public SCR data.

View all literature mentions

Bio-Rad Laboratories (tool)

RRID:SCR_008426

Commercial instrument and chemical vendor. Developer and manufacturer of specialized technological products for life science research and clinical diagnostics markets.

View all literature mentions

New England Biolabs (tool)

RRID:SCR_013517

An Antibody supplier

View all literature mentions

HEK293 (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0045

Cell line HEK293 is a Transformed cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

MCF-7 (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0031

Cell line MCF-7 is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

MDA-MB-231 (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0062

Cell line MDA-MB-231 is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

Crl:NU(NCr)-Foxn1nu (tool)

RRID:IMSR_CRL:490

Mus musculus with name Crl:NU(NCr)-Foxn1nu from IMSR.

View all literature mentions

HeLa (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0030

Cell line HeLa is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens

View all literature mentions

HEK293T (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0063

Cell line HEK293T is a Transformed cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

DU145 (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0105

Cell line DU145 is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

SH-SY5Y (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0019

Cell line SH-SY5Y is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions

HCT 116 (tool)

RRID:CVCL_0291

Cell line HCT 116 is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)

View all literature mentions