The miRNA bantam regulates growth and tumorigenesis by repressing the cell cycle regulator tribbles

Stephan U. Gerlach, Moritz Sander, Shilin Song, Héctor Herranz*

*Corresponding author for this work
7 Citations (Scopus)
23 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

One of the fundamental issues in biology is understanding how organ size is controlled. Tissue growth has to be carefully regulated to generate well-functioning organs, and defects in growth control can result in tumor formation. The Hippo signaling pathway is a universal growth regulator and has been implicated in cancer. In Drosophila, the Hippo pathway acts through the miRNA bantam to regulate cell proliferation and apoptosis. Even though the bantam targets regulating apoptosis have been determined, the target genes controlling proliferation have not been identified thus far. In this study, we identify the gene tribbles as a direct bantam target gene. Tribbles limits cell proliferation by suppressing G2/M transition. We show that tribbles regulation by bantam is central in controlling tissue growth and tumorigenesis. We expand our study to other cell cycle regulators and show that deregulated G2/M transition can collaborate with oncogene activation driving tumor formation.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere201900381
JournalLife Science Alliance
Volume2
Issue number4
Number of pages12
ISSN2575-1077
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

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