Poster Presentation 35th Lorne Cancer Conference 2023

­­­The N-Myc-responsive lncRNA MILIP promotes DNA double-strand break repair through non-homologous end joining (#357)

Liang Xu 1 , Yu Chen Feng 1 , Xiao Hong Zhao 1 , Yuan Yuan Zhang 1 , Lei Jin 1 , Tao Liu 2 , Xu Dong Zhang 1
  1. Noncoding Cancer Biomarkers and Therapeutics Group, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, the university of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
  2. Children’s Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research, the University of New South Wales, sydney, NSW, Australia

The proto-oncoprotein N-Myc, which is overexpressed in approximately 25% of neuroblastomas as the consequence of MYCN gene amplification, has long been postulated to regulate DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair in neuroblastoma cells, but experimental evidence of this function is presently scant. Here we show that N-Myc transcriptionally activates the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) MILIP to promote non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) DNA repair through facilitating Ku70-Ku80 heterodimerization in neuroblastoma cells. High MILIP expression was associated with poor outcome and appeared an independent prognostic factor in neuroblastoma patients. Knockdown of MILIP reduced neuroblastoma cell viability through the induction of apoptosis and inhibition of proliferation, retarded neuroblastoma xenograft growth, and sensitized neuroblastoma cells to DNA damaging therapeutics. The effect of MILIP knockdown was associated with the accumulation of DNA DSBs in neuroblastoma cells largely due to decreased activity of the NHEJ DNA repair pathway. Mechanistical investigations revealed that binding of MILIP to Ku70 and Ku80 increased their heterodimerization and this was required for MILIP-mediated promotion of NHEJ DNA repair. Disrupting the interaction between MILIP and Ku70 or Ku80 increased DNA DSBs and reduced cell viability with therapeutic potential revealed where targeting MILIP using Gapmers cooperated with the DNA-damaging drug cisplatin to inhibit neuroblastoma growth in vivo. Collectively, Our findings substantiate the long-postulated role of N-Myc in regulating DNA repair in neuroblastoma cells and reveal the functional importance of MILIP in cell survival, proliferation, and resistance to genotoxic stress, with practical implications of MILIP targeting, alone and in combination with DNA-damaging therapeutics, for neuroblastoma treatment.