Abstract 561: Targeting Y box binding protein 1 (YBX1) in MYC-amplified medulloblastoma
Authors: Carney Stephen , Hemenway John , Rajendran Ashmitha , Hathaway Matt , Nealy Eric , Bonatto Christian , Tailor Dhanir , Malhotra Sanjay , Evans Myron 
Published: March 2024

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor. Patients diagnosed with MYC-amplified group 3 medulloblastoma (G3 MB) have a devastating prognosis with a 5-year survival rate of &lt;50%. Standard of care (SOC) consists of maximal resection surgery followed by chemoradiotherapy, but these extensive treatments leave patients with neurocognitive and developmental deficits. Therefore, the identification of novel targets that can be used alone or in combination with SOC is of utmost importance. Using a batch-normalized bulk RNA-seq dataset (GSE124814) comprised of 1350 MB samples and 291 normal cerebella, we reveal upregulation of Y-box binding protein 1 (YBX1) in MB compared to normal cerebellum. Further analysis of this dataset and others demonstrates G3 tumors that display high MYC levels also have the highest YBX1 expression. Analysis of ChIP-seq data shows strong binding of MYC to the YBX1 promoter in G3 MB, concurrent with H3K27ac and H3K4me3 histone modifications. Using a well-established ex vivo model, we demonstrate increased YBX1 expression as normal cerebellar progenitor cells transition to tumorigenic G3 MB stem-like cells. Recent work in leukemia reveals a reciprocal regulation of MYC by YBX1, however, this mechanism is not well established in G3 MB. We utilized an orthogonal pharmacogenetic approach to inhibit YBX1 function and determine its effects on G3 MB tumor biology. Suppression of YBX1 significantly reduced the proliferation and decreased MYC protein expression of G3 MB cells in vitro. These findings support a reciprocal MYC-YBX1 axis, which could influence tumor growth in vivo. Orthotopic implantation of YBX1 KO G3 MB cells leads to increased animal survival. We next evaluated the therapeutic potential of two recently characterized YBX1 inhibitors which display single agent efficacy in vitro and in vivo. YBX1 inhibitors synergized with SOC in vitro lowering the IC50 for both chemo and radiotherapy, which could reduce adverse effects experienced by patients. In silico molecular docking using PyMOL predicts YBX1 inhibitors interact with amino acids within the cold shock domain of YBX1, likely impairing its ability to bind RNA. We performed formaldehyde RNA immunoprecipitation (fRIP)-sequencing to identify changes in RNA transcript levels following YBX1 pharmacological inhibition. Disruption of YBX1-RNA binding impacts the stability of known oncogenic transcripts which may be required for tumorigenesis. Our findings impart an alluring prospect of targeting YBX1 in combination with standard-of-care, and possibly other compounds to improve patients’ outcomes.

Citation Format: Stephen Carney, John Hemenway, Ashmitha Rajendran, Matt Hathaway, Eric Nealy, Christian Bonatto, Dhanir Tailor, Sanjay Malhotra, Myron Evans. Targeting Y box binding protein 1 (YBX1) in MYC-amplified medulloblastoma [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 561.