The life cycle of a primary cilium begins in quiescence and ends prior to mitosis. In quiescent cells, primary cilium insulates itself from contiguous dynamic membrane processes on the cell surface to function as a stable signaling apparatus. Here, we demonstrate that basal restriction of ciliary structure dynamics is established by cilia-enriched phosphoinositide 5-phosphatase, Inpp5e. Growth induction displaces ciliary Inpp5e and accumulates phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate to distal cilia. This triggers otherwise forbidden actin polymerization in primary cilia, which excises cilia tips in a process we call cilia decapitation. Whilst cilia disassembly is traditionally thought to occur solely through resorption, we show that an acute loss of IFT-B through cilia decapitation precedes resorption. Finally, we propose that cilia decapitation induces mitogenic signaling and constitutes a molecular link between the cilia life cycle and cell-division cycle. This newly defined ciliary mechanism may find significance in cell proliferation control during normal development and cancer.
While cancers grow in their hosts and evade host immunity through immunoediting and immunosuppression1–5, tumors are rarely transmissible between individuals. Much like transplanted allogeneic organs, allogeneic tumors are reliably rejected by host T cells, even when the tumor and host share the same major histocompatibility complex (MHC) alleles, the most potent determinants of transplant rejection6–10. How such tumor-eradicating immunity is initiated remains unknown, though elucidating this process could provide a roadmap for inducing similar responses against naturally arising tumors. We found that allogeneic tumor rejection is initiated by naturally occurring tumor-binding IgG antibodies, which enable dendritic cells (DC) to internalize tumor antigens and subsequently activate tumor-reactive T cells. We exploited this mechanism to successfully treat autologous and autochthonous tumors. Either systemic administration of DC loaded with allogeneic IgG (alloIgG)-coated tumor cells or intratumoral injection of alloIgG in combination with DC stimuli induced potent T cell mediated anti-tumor immune responses, resulting in tumor eradication in mouse models of melanoma, pancreas, lung and breast cancer. Moreover, this strategy led to eradication of distant tumors and metastases, as well as the injected primary tumors. To assess the clinical relevance of these findings, we studied antibodies and cells from patients with lung cancer. T cells from these patients responded vigorously to autologous tumor antigens after culture with alloIgG-loaded DC, recapitulating our findings in mice. These results reveal that tumor-binding alloIgG can induce powerful anti-tumor immunity that can be exploited for cancer immunotherapy.
Previously we proposed that transmission of the hedgehog signal across the plasma membrane by Smoothened is triggered by its interaction with cholesterol (Luchetti et al., 2016). But how is cholesterol, an abundant lipid, regulated tightly enough to control a signaling system that can cause birth defects and cancer? Using toxin-based sensors that distinguish between distinct pools of cholesterol, we find that Smoothened activation and hedgehog signaling are driven by a biochemically-defined, small fraction of membrane cholesterol, termed accessible cholesterol. Increasing cholesterol accessibility by depletion of sphingomyelin, which sequesters cholesterol in complexes, amplifies hedgehog signaling. Hedgehog ligands increase cholesterol accessibility in the membrane of the primary cilium by inactivating the transporter-like protein Patched 1. Trapping this accessible cholesterol blocks hedgehog signal transmission across the membrane. Our work shows that the organization of cholesterol in the ciliary membrane can be modified by extracellular ligands to control the activity of cilia-localized signaling proteins.
The morphogen Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) patterns tissues during development by directing cell fates in a concentration-dependent manner. The SHH signal is transmitted across the membrane of target cells by the heptahelical transmembrane protein Smoothened (SMO), which activates the GLI family of transcription factors through a mechanism that is undefined in vertebrates. Using CRISPR-edited null alleles and small molecule inhibitors, we systematically analyzed the epistatic interactions between SMO and three proteins implicated in SMO signaling: the heterotrimeric G-protein subunit GαS, G protein–coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2), and the GαS-coupled receptor GPR161. Our experiments uncovered a signaling mechanism that modifies the sensitivity of target cells to SHH and consequently changes the shape of the SHH dose-response curve. In both fibroblasts and spinal neural progenitors, the loss of GPR161, previously implicated as an inhibitor of basal SHH signaling, increased the sensitivity of target cells across the entire spectrum of SHH concentrations. Surprisingly, GRK2, thought to function by antagonizing GPR161, and Gαs, which is activated by GPR161, influenced SHH signaling even in cells lacking GPR161. We propose that the sensitivity of target cells to Hedgehog (Hh) morphogens, and the consequent effects on gene expression and differentiation outcomes, can be controlled by signals from G-protein coupled receptors that converge on Gαs and Protein Kinase A.
SKCa activation drives the fate of pluripotent cells toward mesoderm commitment and cardiomyocyte specification, preferentially into nodal-like cardiomyocytes. This provides a novel strategy for the enrichment of cardiomyocytes and in particular, the generation of a specific subtype of cardiomyocytes, pacemaker-like cells, without genetic modification.
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