Targeted perturbation of signaling-driven condensates

Biomolecular condensates have emerged as a major organizational principle in the cell. However, the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of condensates are still poorly understood. Transcriptional machinery partitions into biomolecular condensates at key cell identity genes to activate these. Her...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Molecular cell Vol. 83; no. 22; pp. 4141 - 4157.e11
Main Authors: Gui, Tianshu, Fleming, Cassio, Manzato, Caterina, Bourgeois, Benjamin, Sirati, Nafiseh, Heuer, Jasper, Papadionysiou, Ioanna, Montfort, Daniel I. van, Gijzen, Merel van, Smits, Lydia M.M., Burgering, Boudewijn M.T., Madl, Tobias, Schuijers, Jurian
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 16-11-2023
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Biomolecular condensates have emerged as a major organizational principle in the cell. However, the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of condensates are still poorly understood. Transcriptional machinery partitions into biomolecular condensates at key cell identity genes to activate these. Here, we report a specific perturbation of WNT-activated β-catenin condensates that disrupts oncogenic signaling. We use a live-cell condensate imaging method in human cancer cells to discover FOXO and TCF-derived peptides that specifically inhibit β-catenin condensate formation on DNA, perturb nuclear β-catenin condensates in cells, and inhibit β-catenin-driven transcriptional activation and colorectal cancer cell growth. We show that these peptides compete with homotypic intermolecular interactions that normally drive condensate formation. Using this framework, we derive short peptides that specifically perturb condensates and transcriptional activation of YAP and TAZ in the Hippo pathway. We propose a "monomer saturation" model in which short interacting peptides can be used to specifically inhibit condensate-associated transcription in disease.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:1097-2765
1097-4164
DOI:10.1016/j.molcel.2023.10.023