Role of AHCYL1 in lung tumorigenesis and cell plasticity

NICOLÁS BUDNIK; MELINA MUÑOZ BERNART; CAROLINA PEREZ-CASTRO

Capital federal

Otro; Scientific Advisory board (Max Planck society); 2019

IBioBA (Max Planck partner institute)

Cell plasticity is critical during development and tumorigenesis, in which cells may undergo differentiation/dedifferentiation processes. TGF-β1/SMAD proteins and the core transcriptional factors (Oct-4,Sox2, and Nanog) modulate the behavior of stem cells as well as the tumor cells. We study oncogenic reprogramming using the cell plasticity as a model and for this, we have chosen human non-small-celllung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines A549 and H1299, which are capable of growing as three-dimensional (3D) culture (a property of stem-like cells). Also, A549 cells were induced with TGF-β1 to undergo Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT), which is often associated with the acquisition of stem-like characteristics. In this context, we have started characterizing Ahcyl1 gene, which was previously identified to bepotentially co-regulated by the core factors and TGFβ/SMAD proteins in stem-like cells by a bioinformatic tool INSECT.