Abstract 2984: A novel role for survivin, a potential target for cancer drugs, in vesicle trafficking (2011)

Abstract Survivin is a 16.5 kD protein that is highly expressed in most cancer cells. Although it is also expressed in embryonic tissues and proliferating adult cells, it may be a promising target for cancer therapy if it has distinct functions in normal versus malignant cells. It is well established that survivin has an essential role in dividing cells as a member of the chromosome passenger complex (CPC). We recently showed that survivin is highly expressed in orthochromatic erythroblasts, cells that have exited the cell cycle and undergoing enucleation. Based on this observation, we predicted that survivin would play a novel role in maturation of these late erythroblasts. To discover the function of survivin in these post-mitotic cells, we first analyzed the localization of survivin and other members of the CPC by immunofluorescence. We discovered that survivin is expressed in cytoplasm, but did not colocalize with aurora B kinase or INCENP in primary enucleating erythroblasts. Next, we overexpressed survivin in the murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cell line, which undergoes terminal differentiation but does not enucleate, and quantified the effect on maturation by flow cytometry. In contrast to control MEL cells, which down-regulate survivin and fail to enucleate, nearly 15% of the survivin overexpressing cells showed nuclear extrusion. To obtain insight into this novel effect of survivin, we purified survivin protein complexes from MEL cell lysates and performed mass spectrometry. We found that EPS-15 (EGFR pathway substrate clone 15) and clathrin, two proteins that are involved in endocytic vesicle trafficking, interact with survivin. We confirmed these interactions by immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence studies in primary human erythroblasts. Next, we individually knocked down survivin and EPS-15 in primary human erythroblast cultures and demonstrated that both proteins are required for optimal enucleation. Moreover, deletion of the survivin gene in fetal liver erythroblasts isolated from survivin floxed embryos, reduced the enucleation efficiency without affecting cell survival or differentiation. In order to determine how survivin and EPS15 contribute to enucleation, we performed light microscopic and ultrastructural examination of primary murine red cells undergoing terminal maturation. We observed that loss of survivin was associated with a decrease in the number of large cellular vacuoles within erythroblasts. Furthermore, by immunogold-EM, we found that survivin co-localized with EPS-15 within LAMP1-positive vacuoles in late erythroblasts. Finally, we observed that vacuolin-1, a small molecule that increases the number and size of vacuoles, rescued the enucleation defect of survivin-/- erythroblasts. Together, these results suggest that survivin plays an important and novel role in vesicle trafficking within maturing red blood cells. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2984. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-2984