The c-Myc oncoprotein is a cellular target of great interest because its proper physiological level is essential for normal cell growth and proliferation, while its deregulated overexpression is closely related to many human cancers. Thus c-Myc level and activity must be tightly controlled in cells. In an attempt to understand the regulation of c-Myc, I have recently identified that ribosomal protein L11, a component of the large subunit of the ribosome, inhibits c-Myc transactivation activity and induction of cell proliferation. As L11 is transcriptionally induced by c-Myc, these results lead to an important hypothesis that L11 may act as a critical auto-regulatory feedback inhibitor of c-Myc. My current research focuses on understanding this L11-c-Myc feedback inhibition by further characterizing L11-c-Myc protein-protein interaction, L11 protein-c-myc mRNA interaction, and the inhibitory effect of L11 on c-Myc-enhanced ribosomal biogenesis. My broad, long-term objectives of this application in the independent phase are to study how L11 inhibits c-Myc function and whether L11 suppresses c-Myc's transformation activity in cells and oncogenic activity in vivo.
Three specific aims are proposed: 1) To investigate the mechanisms underlying the inhibitory role of L11 on c-Myc activity, I will analyze whether L11 conceals c-Myc transactivation domain on its target gene promoters;2) To investigate whether L11 regulates c-myc mRNA level and translation through microRNA-guided pathways, I will investigate whether L11 binds to 3'-UTR of c-myc mRNA with RNA interference silencing complex (RISC) to degrade c-myc mRNA and/or silence its translation;3) To investigate the physiological significance of the inhibitory effect of L11 on c-Myc, I will determine whether L11-c-Myc loop plays a role in normal cellular growth response and also in response to certain types of cellular stress, and whether L11 suppresses c-Myc-induced transformation in cells and tumor formation in mice. Achieving these aims from this project using biochemical, cellular and molecular biological, and genetic approaches would demonstrate a novel tumor suppressive function of L11 by inhibiting c-Myc. Since ablating c-Myc expression leads to regression of c-Myc-induced tumors in multiple tissues, results from the mechanistic studies on L11's inhibitory effect on c-Myc would offer useful information for developing antitumor drugs that target c-Myc in cancer patients.
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