Pitea, A. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2023

HBV rewires liver cancer signaling by altering PP2A complexes

Infection by hepatitis B virus (HBV) increases risk for liver cancer by inducing inflammation, cellular stress and cell death. To elucidate the molecular pathways by which HBV promotes cancer development and progression, we used affinity purification mass spectrometry to comprehensively map a network of 145 physical interactions between HBV and human host proteins in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We find that viral proteins target host factors that are preferentially mutated in non-HBV-associated HCC, implicating cancer pathways whose interaction with HBV plays a role in HCC. Focusing on proteins that directly interact with the HBV oncoprotein X (HBx), we show that HBx remodels the PP2A phosphatase complex, altering its effect on tumor signaling. HBx excludes striatin-family regulatory subunits from PP2A, causing Hippo kinase activation and unmasking a requirement for mTOR complex 2 to maintain expression of the YAP oncoprotein in HCC. Thus, HBV rewires HCC to expose potentially targetable signaling dependencies. SignificancePrecision medicine has revolutionized cancer treatment but remains elusive for HCC. We used proteomics to define HBV/host interactions and integrated them with HCC mutations. The results implicate modifiers of HCC behavior via remodeling of host complexes and illuminate new biological mechanisms in advanced disease for therapeutic investigation.

cancer biology↗

bioRxiv2020

Mapping cell structure across scales by fusing protein images and interactions

ABSTRACTThe eukaryotic cell is a multi-scale structure with modular organization across at least four orders of magnitude1,2. Two central approaches for mapping this structure – protein fluorescent imaging and protein biophysical association – each generate extensive datasets but of distinct qualities and resolutions that are typically treated separately3,4. Here, we integrate immunofluorescent images in the Human Protein Atlas5 with ongoing affinity purification experiments from the BioPlex resource6 to create a unified hierarchical map of eukaryotic cell architecture. Integration involves configuring each approach to produce a general measure of protein distance, then calibrating the two measures using machine learning. The evolving map, called the Multi-Scale Integrated Cell (MuSIC 1.0), currently resolves 69 subcellular systems of which approximately half are undocumented. Based on these findings we perform 134 additional affinity purifications, validating close subunit associations for the majority of systems. The map elucidates roles for poorly characterized proteins, such as the appearance of FAM120C in chromatin; identifies new protein assemblies in ribosomal biogenesis, RNA splicing, nuclear speckles, and ion transport; and reveals crosstalk between cytoplasmic and mitochondrial ribosomal proteins. By integration across scales, MuSIC substantially increases the mapping resolution obtained from imaging while giving protein interactions a spatial dimension, paving the way to incorporate many molecular data types in proteome-wide maps of cells.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.View Full Text

systems biology↗