Abstract 1546: Contribution of heterozygous loss of ribosomal protein L5 as general tumor suppressor in cancer
Authors: Kampen Kim R. , Fancello Laura , Verbeeck Jelle , Keersmaecker Kim De 
Published: July 2017

The association between ribosome defects and cancer became clear with the recent discovery of somatic mutations in ribosomal protein genes in several cancers, such as lymphoid leukemia’s and glioblastoma (Nat Genet. 2013 Feb;45(2):186-90 & Blood. 2016 Feb 25;127(8):1007-16 & Nature. 2014 Jan 23;505(7484):495-501). To further delineate the role of ribosomal proteins in human cancer, we systematically screened the TCGA database for genetic lesions in ribosomal protein genes, confirmed the contributing capacity of the most common somatic ribosomal protein defect in cancer pathogenesis by molecular interference, and explored the mode of action of this ribosomal protein defect. Systematic analysis of TCGA mutation and copy number data of respectively 4926 and 7322 patients representing 16 cancer types for defects in all 81 ribosomal protein genes. After stringent filtering, six ribosomal protein encoding genes (RPL5, RPL11, RPL23A, RPS5, RPS20 and RPSA) were significantly altered and identified as candidate cancer driver genes. RPL5 was located at a significant peak of heterozygous deletion on chromosome 1p22 and showed significant mutations and deletions in 11% of glioblastoma (GBM), 28% of melanoma, 34% of breast cancer (BRCA), and in 20% of multiple myeloma cases, thereby supporting heterozygous RPL5 inactivation to be the most common somatic ribosomal protein defect in human cancer. Human specific RPL5 doxycycline inducible knockdown (sh-hRPL5) in TP53 WT and TP53 mutant human breast cancer cell lines (MCF7 and MDA-MB-231) and in a TP53 mutant human glioblastoma cell line (U-118 MG) proved that RPL5 knockdown accelerated in vivo tumor progression in NSG mice. This acceleration was associated with reduced phosphorylation of CDK1tyr15, which is required for cell cycle progression from G2 to mitosis. Whereas RPL5 has been implicated in TP53 and MYC regulation, no consistent effects of RPL5 downregulation on these proteins could be detected in TP53 WT and TP53 homozygous R280K mutant breast cancer models (sh-hRPL5). Interestingly, partial RPL5 inactivation was found to be associated with PTEN protein suppression in these tumors. This observation was confirmed in various cell models; in normal mouse neural stem/progenitor cells and mouse bone marrow cells (RPL5+/lox by INFβ and poly I:C), and also in GBM cancer pre-disposition mouse neural stem/progenitor cell model (sh-mRPL5 TP53 -/-). RPL5 downregulation also accelerated tumor formation in the PTEN deficient GBM cell line U-118 MG, underscoring undefined PTEN-independent mechanisms of RPL5. Overall, we identified RPL5 as a new tumor suppressor that shows heterozygous inactivation in 11-34% of multiple human cancer types. Partial molecular inactivation of RPL5 supported a tumor suppressor function for RPL5 in accelerating breast cancer and glioblastoma progression in vivo, which may be, in part, due to a new function of RPL5 in regulating PTEN.

Citation Format: Kim R. Kampen, Laura Fancello, Jelle Verbeeck, Kim De Keersmaecker. Contribution of heterozygous loss of ribosomal protein L5 as general tumor suppressor in cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1546. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-1546