Role of PLK1 in steroid hormone signaling in breast cancer cells

Wierer, Michael

Role of PLK1 in steroid hormone signaling in breast cancer cells

Document Type

Doctoral thesis
Published Version

Author

Wierer, Michael

Director

Beato, Miguel

Publication Date

2013-01-13

Pages

160 p.

Citation

Wierer, M. Role of PLK1 in steroid hormone signaling in breast cancer cells. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; 2013. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/283474

This citation was generated automatically.

Doctoral program

Programa de doctorat en Biomedicina

Abstract

Steroid receptors (SRs) are hormone-induced transcription factors that regulate gene expression by their concerted actions with coregulatory proteins. Performing a quantitative mass spectrometry-based interaction screen in breast cancer cells, we identified Polo-like kinase 1 to interact with progesterone receptor (PR) and estrogen receptor (ER) in presence of their respective hormone stimuli. PLK1 is recruited to chromatin and regulates SR-dependent and –independent gene transcription. Global gene expression analysis let us observe that PLK1-coactivated genes are enriched in developmental functions and linked to good clinical prognosis in breast cancer patients. Using large-scale phosphoproteomics with MCF7 breast cancer cells treated with estradiol in presence or absence of the specific PLK1 inhibitor BI2536, we observed that 28% of estradiol-induced phosphorylation sites depended on PLK1 activity. Among proteins with PLK1-dependent phosphorylation sites, we identified several transcriptional regulators including the ER-associated histone H3K4-methylase MLL2. As PLK1 inhibition reduced the estradiol-mediated induction of H3K4 methylation levels at MLL2 target genes, together these results propose a role of PLK1 in the regulation of MLL2 activity. Finally, in a targeted approach using recombinant histone proteins as substrate of PLK1, we observed a specific phosphorylation of histone H2B at serine 36. In summary, we conclude that PLK1 affects SR-dependent and SR-independent gene transcription by phosphorylating several transcriptional regulators and chromatin components.