Therapy resistance of tumor cells is a major obstacle for efficient anticancer treatment approaches and has been attributed to tumor heterogeneity as well as genetic and epigenetic changes. Accumulati Show more
Therapy resistance of tumor cells is a major obstacle for efficient anticancer treatment approaches and has been attributed to tumor heterogeneity as well as genetic and epigenetic changes. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that tumor cell adhesion to the extracellular matrix acts as an additional essential factor conferring tumor cell resistance to both radio- and chemotherapeutic intervention. Our recent study demonstrates that DDR1 (discoidin domain receptor tyrosine kinase 1) elicits therapy resistance of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) stem-like and bulk cells through its adhesion to extracellular matrix and the subsequent modulation of macroautophagy/autophagy. Mechanistically, DDR1 associates with a YWHA/14-3-3-BECN1-AKT1 multiprotein complex favoring pro-survival/anti-autophagic and resistance-mediating AKT-MTOR signaling. In turn, inhibition of DDR1 sensitizes glioblastoma cells to radio- and chemotherapy by inducing autophagy. Collectively, our study suggests that DDR1 may be a potential target for sensitizing glioblastoma cells to combination therapies through its efficient induction of autophagic cell death. Show less
The vertebrate nuclear pore complex (NPC) is a macromolecular assembly of protein subcomplexes forming a structure of eightfold radial symmetry. The NPC core consists of globular subunits sandwiched b Show more
The vertebrate nuclear pore complex (NPC) is a macromolecular assembly of protein subcomplexes forming a structure of eightfold radial symmetry. The NPC core consists of globular subunits sandwiched between two coaxial ring-like structures of which the ring facing the nuclear interior is capped by a fibrous structure called the nuclear basket. By postembedding immunoelectron microscopy, we have mapped the positions of several human NPC proteins relative to the NPC core and its associated basket, including Nup93, Nup96, Nup98, Nup107, Nup153, Nup205, and the coiled coil-dominated 267-kDa protein Tpr. To further assess their contributions to NPC and basket architecture, the genes encoding Nup93, Nup96, Nup107, and Nup205 were posttranscriptionally silenced by RNA interference (RNAi) in HeLa cells, complementing recent RNAi experiments on Nup153 and Tpr. We show that Nup96 and Nup107 are core elements of the NPC proper that are essential for NPC assembly and docking of Nup153 and Tpr to the NPC. Nup93 and Nup205 are other NPC core elements that are important for long-term maintenance of NPCs but initially dispensable for the anchoring of Nup153 and Tpr. Immunogold-labeling for Nup98 also results in preferential labeling of NPC core regions, whereas Nup153 is shown to bind via its amino-terminal domain to the nuclear coaxial ring linking the NPC core structures and Tpr. The position of Tpr in turn is shown to coincide with that of the nuclear basket, with different Tpr protein domains corresponding to distinct basket segments. We propose a model in which Tpr constitutes the central architectural element that forms the scaffold of the nuclear basket. Show less