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Reprogramming of 3D chromatin domains by antagonizing the β-catenin/CBP interaction attenuates insulin signaling in pancreatic cancer. bioRxiv 2023 Nov 14

Date

11/28/2023

Pubmed ID

38013997

Pubmed Central ID

PMC10680786

DOI

10.1101/2023.11.10.566585

Abstract

The therapeutic potential of targeting the β-catenin/CBP interaction has been demonstrated in a variety of preclinical tumor models with a small molecule inhibitor, ICG-001, characterized as a β-catenin/CBP antagonist. Despite the high binding specificity of ICG-001 for the N-terminus of CBP, this β-catenin/CBP antagonist exhibits pleiotropic effects. Our recent studies found global changes in three-dimensional (3D) chromatin architecture in response to disruption of the β-catenin/CBP interaction in pancreatic cancer cells. However, an understanding of the functional crosstalk between antagonizing the β-catenin/CBP interaction effect changes in 3D chromatin architecture and thereby gene expression and downstream effects remains to be elucidated. Here we perform Hi-C analyses on canonical and patient-derived pancreatic cancer cells before and after the treatment with ICG-001. In addition to global alteration of 3D chromatin domains, we unexpectedly identify insulin signaling genes enriched in the altered chromatin domains. We further demonstrate the chromatin loops associated with insulin signaling genes are significantly weakened after ICG-001 treatment. We finally elicit the deletion of a looping of IRS1, a key insulin signaling gene, significantly impede pancreatic cancer cell growth, indicating that looping-mediated insulin signaling might act as an oncogenic pathway to promote pancreatic cancer progression. Our work shows that targeting aberrant insulin chromatin looping in pancreatic cancer might provide a therapeutic benefit.

Author List

Zhou Y, Li T, He Z, Choppavarapu L, Hu X, Cao R, Leone GW, Kahn M, Jin VX

Authors

Lavanya Choppavarapu PhD Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Health and Equity department at Medical College of Wisconsin
Victor X. Jin PhD Professor in the Institute for Health and Equity department at Medical College of Wisconsin