Myc Supports Self-Renewal of Basal Cells in the Esophageal Epithelium
It is widely believed that cellular senescence plays a critical role in both aging and cancer, and that senescence is a fundamental, permanent growth arrest that somatic cells cannot avoid. Here we show that Myc plays an important role in self-renewal of esophageal epithelial cells, contributing to...
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Published in | Frontiers in cell and developmental biology Vol. 10; p. 786031 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Switzerland
Frontiers Media S.A
04.03.2022
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | It is widely believed that cellular senescence plays a critical role in both aging and cancer, and that senescence is a fundamental, permanent growth arrest that somatic cells cannot avoid. Here we show that Myc plays an important role in self-renewal of esophageal epithelial cells, contributing to their resistance to cellular senescence. Myc is homogeneously expressed in basal cells of the esophageal epithelium and Myc positively regulates their self-renewal by maintaining their undifferentiated state. Indeed, Myc knockout induced a loss of the undifferentiated state of esophageal epithelial cells resulting in cellular senescence while forced MYC expression promoted oncogenic cell proliferation. A superoxide scavenger counteracted Myc knockout-induced senescence, therefore suggesting that a mitochondrial superoxide takes part in inducing senescence. Taken together, these analyses reveal extremely low levels of cellular senescence and senescence-associated phenotypes in the esophageal epithelium, as well as a critical role for Myc in self-renewal of basal cells in this organ. This provides new avenues for studying and understanding the links between stemness and resistance to cellular senescence. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Reviewed by: Viacheslav Senichkin, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia Demitrios Vynios, University of Patras, Greece Edited by: Gelina Kopeina, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia Takafumi Suzuki, Tohoku University, Japan Present Address: Sanjeeb Kumar Sahu, Altos Labs, San Diego, CA Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Altos Labs, San Diego, CA This article was submitted to Molecular and Cellular Oncology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology |
ISSN: | 2296-634X 2296-634X |
DOI: | 10.3389/fcell.2022.786031 |