Scientists Identify One of the Causes of Aggressive Liver Cancer – A “Molecular Staple”

Cells constantly experience malfunctions that require error correction mechanisms to function properly. However, in the case of cancer cells, inducing errors can be beneficial in the effort to eliminate them. Treatments like radiotherapy and chemotherapy damage cancer cells’ DNA to induce cellular defects, but some tumor cells have a highly effective DNA repair system that enables them to evade these treatments. A recent study has shed light on one of these exceptional DNA repair systems. Using advanced nanotechnology, researchers have observed a molecular staple in action for the first time, which is part of the DNA repair system. This discovery provides new insights into how cancer cells can evade treatment and opens up possibilities for developing new cancer therapies.

Researchers uncover a novel DNA repair process that impedes cancer treatment.

Error correction is crucial for cells due to the constant occurrence of malfunctions during cellular activity. However, inducing errors is beneficial in the effort to kill cancer cells. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy induce cellular defects by damaging the DNA

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]”>DNA of cancer cells. Unfortunately, some tumor cells possess a highly effective DNA repair system, enabling them to escape treatment.

A new study published in Cell Reports

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]”>Cell Reports by Óscar Llorca from CNIO, Fernando Moreno-Herrero from CNB, and Puri Fortes from CIMA-University of Navarra, sheds light on one of these extraordinary DNA repair systems. The team revealed the function of a molecular staple using a cutting-edge nanotechnology method, marking the first time it has been observed in action.

In liver cancer with the worst prognosis

A few years ago, a team led by Puri Fortes team discovered that about half of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (the most common type of liver cancer) produce an RNA

” data-gt-translate-attributes=”[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]”>RNA molecule called NIHCOLE, which is found mainly in the most aggressive tumors and is associated with a poor prognosis. Fortes, Llorca, and Moreno-Herrero concluded that NIHCOLE is very effective at helping repair broken DNA, which is why radiotherapy is less effective in tumors where it is present. By eliminating NIHCOLE, cancer cells treated with radiotherapy die more easily.

However, the molecular mechanism by which NIHCOLE facilitates the repair of DNA breaks was not known. The paper just published in Cell Reports explains this: NIHCOLE forms a bridge that binds the broken DNA fragments together.

“NIHCOLE interacts simultaneously with proteins that recognize the two ends of a fragmented DNA, as if stapling them together,” explain Llorca and Moreno-Herrero.

Researchers describe a new DNA repair mechanism that hinders cancer treatment. Credit: CireniaSketches/CNI

Understanding this mechanism may help in the development of strategies to combat liver cancers with the worst prognosis. “The use of NIHCOLE inhibitor drugs may represent a new therapy for the most common form of liver cancer,” the researchers say.

Magnetic nano-tweezers for stretching DNA

To understand how NIHCOLE works, Fernando Moreno-Herrero’s group has used magnetic tweezers, a nanotechnology technique that allows the physical properties of individual molecules to be studied.

Researchers have designed a DNA molecule that mimics broken DNA, allowing them to detect the junction between the two fragmented ends. First, they attach a tiny magnetic bead, on the scale of a thousandth of a millimeter, to one end of the DNA, and then use magnetic nano-tweezers to pull on that end. The length of the stretched DNA indicates whether it is a reconstituted DNA molecule, in which the broken ends of the DNA have been joined together, or whether it is still broken.

For the authors of the Cell Reports paper, these data show that NIHCOLE “confers advantages on tumor cells by helping them to repair DNA breaks, thereby sustaining the malignant proliferation of cancer cells despite the accumulation of DNA damage resulting from the stress of cell division itself.”

‘Junk DNA’ that is no longer junk

NIHCOLE is not a protein synthesized by a gene, but an RNA molecule. It is part of what biologists dubbed junk DNA two decades ago when the human genome was being sequenced. At the time, they mistakenly believed that this DNA was useless.

Llorca explains: “One of the central dogmas of biology is that the information contained in each gene, in DNA, is translated into proteins. So scientists were stunned when they discovered that only 2% of our DNA contained genes; what was the rest of our genome for? It is unthinkable that 98% of the genome is junk, useless DNA. In the last decade, it has been shown that part of this dark genome produces very long RNA molecules, some of which have a prevalent function in cancer.”

NIHCOLE is one of these long RNA molecules, the existence and function of which have only recently been discovered to such an extent that biologists are still amazed. It is also surprising that only a small piece of NIHCOLE is required for it to act as a molecular staple.

“This would allow the development of drugs that block or distort this structure, and thus improve the efficacy of radiotherapy or chemotherapy in cancer patients,” say the authors of the paper.

Reference: “APLF and long non-coding RNA NIHCOLE promote stable DNA synapsis in non-homologous end joining” by Sara De Bragança, Clara Aicart-Ramos, Raquel Arribas-Bosacoma, Angel Rivera-Calzada, Juan Pablo Unfried, Laura Prats-Mari, Mikel Marin-Baquero, Puri Fortes, Oscar Llorca, and Fernando Moreno-Herrero, 31 December 2022, Cell Reports.
DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111917