Abstract 381: DUSP12 in glioblastoma: Insights into nucleolar stress and DNA damage response
Authors: Boell Viktor Kalbermatter , Forti Fábio Luís 
Published: March 2024

Glioblastoma (GBM), an extremely aggressive brain tumor, presents molecular complexities that require enormous challenges for its better understanding. The relatively unexplored dual-specificity phosphatase 12 (DUSP12) is an attractive target due to its zinc finger-like domain suggesting potential interactions with nucleic acids and ribonucleoproteins. This highly conserved enzyme plays a pivotal role in ribosome biogenesis across eukaryotes. Importantly, cell cycle arrest induced by DNA damage often coincides with alterations in ribosome biogenesis, a phenomenon termed nucleolar stress, linked to changes in the localization and activity of nucleophosmin (NPM) and p53 proteins. Bioinformatic analysis of public databases revealed elevated DUSP12 expression in glioblastoma samples compared to normal tissue, displaying strong positive correlations with p53 and NPM. While DUSP12 expression did not impact tumor progression in wild-type p53 patients, its lower expression was associated with increased tumor progression in p53-mutant cases, emphasizing the significance of p53 status in understanding DUSP12's roles in GBM. Gene ontology analysis of DUSP12-correlated genes in glioblastoma patients showed robust enrichment in biological processes like ribosome biogenesis, chromosome organization, cell cycle, and DNA repair, with a substantial number of nucleoplasmic and nucleolar proteins being recently identified by our group through mass spectrometry as DUSP12 partners in other tumor models. A substantial difference in DUSP12 protein levels between the GBM cell lines U87MG (wild-type p53) and U138MG (mutant p53) was observed, with the latter presenting higher levels of this phosphatase. Some biological responses of these cell lines were assessed after exposure to the topoisomerase inhibitors doxorubicin (DX) and camptothecin (CPT) through viability assays in adherent and spheroid cultures, γH2AX foci formation, and ATM/Chk2 activation, showing marginal differences between the cell lines. Notably, DX treatment displayed strong nucleolar stress features, such as alterations in the number and size of nucleoli observed by NPM subcellular distribution changes in both cell lines, and induction of p21 expression only in the p53-profficient U87MG. These alterations were accompanied by nuclear accumulation of DUSP12, underlining its potential regulatory role in this process. The knockdown of DUSP12 with specific siRNA led to a substantial decrease of the treatment responsiveness in U138MG, consistent with the lower levels of this phosphatase associated with a more aggressive phenotype in mutant p53 patients. In summary, DUSP12 emerges as a pivotal player in glioblastoma, influencing nucleolar stress dynamics and tumor aggressiveness, particularly in the context of p53 mutations.

Citation Format: Viktor Kalbermatter Boell, Fábio Luís Forti. DUSP12 in glioblastoma: Insights into nucleolar stress and DNA damage response [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 381.