Swarnendu Tripathi, Hazheen K Shirnekhi, Scott D Gorman, Bappaditya Chandra, David W Baggett, Cheon-Gil Park, Ramiz Somjee, Benjamin Lang, Seyed Mohammad Hadi Hosseini, Brittany J Pioso, Yongsheng Li, Ilaria Iacobucci, Qingsong Gao, Michael N Edmonson, Stephen V Rice, Xin Zhou, John Bollinger, Diana M Mitrea, Michael R White, Daniel J McGrail, Daniel F Jarosz, S Stephen Yi, M Madan Babu, Charles G Mullighan, Jinghui Zhang, Nidhi Sahni, Richard W Kriwacki
Fusion oncoproteins (FOs) arise from chromosomal translocations in ~17% of cancers and are often oncogenic drivers. Although some FOs can promote oncogenesis by undergoing liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) to form aberrant biomolecular condensates, the generality of this phenomenon is unknown. We explored this question by testing 166 FOs in HeLa cells and found that 58% formed condensates. The condensate-forming FOs displayed physicochemical features distinct from those of condensate-negative FOs and segregated into distinct feature-based groups that aligned with their sub-cellular localization and biological function...
September 28, 2023: Nature Communications