TY - JOUR
T1 - Deficiency of FLCN in mouse kidney led to development of polycystic kidneys and renal neoplasia
AU - Chen, Jindong
AU - Futami, Kunihiko
AU - Petillo, David
AU - Peng, Jun
AU - Wang, Pengfei
AU - Knol, Jared
AU - Li, Yan
AU - Khoo, Sok Kean
AU - Huang, Dan
AU - Qian, Chao Nan
AU - Zhao, Ping
AU - Dykyma, Karl
AU - Zhang, Racheal
AU - Cao, Brian
AU - Yang, Ximing J.
AU - Furge, Kyle
AU - Williams, Bart O.
AU - Teh, Bin Tean
PY - 2008/10/30
Y1 - 2008/10/30
N2 - The Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) disease is a genetic cancer syndrome. The responsible gene, BHD, has been identified by positional cloning and thought to be a novel tumor suppressor gene. BHD mutations cause many types of diseases including renal cell carcinomas, fibrofolliculomas, spontaneous pneumothorax, lung cysts, and colonic polyps/cancers. By combining Gateway Technology with the Ksp-Cre gene knockout system, we have developed a kidney-specific BHD knockout mouse model. BHDflox/ flox/Ksp-Cre mice developed enlarged kidneys characterized by polycystic kidneys, hyperplasia, and cystic renal cell carcinoma. The affected BHDflox/flox/Ksp-Cre mice died of renal failure at approximate three weeks of age, having blood urea nitrogen levels over tenfold higher than those of BHD flox/+/Ksp-Cre and wild-type littermate controls. We further demonstrated that these phenotypes were caused by inactivation of BHD and subsequent activation of the mTOR pathway. Application of rapamycin, which inhibits mTOR activity, to the affected mice led to extended survival and inhibited further progression of cystogenesis. These results provide a correlation of kidney-targeted gene inactivation with renal carcinoma, and they suggest that the BHD product FLCN, functioning as a cyst and tumor suppressor, like other hamartoma syndrome-related proteins such as PTEN, LKB1, and TSC1/2, is a component of the mTOR pathway, constituting a novel FLCN-mTOR signaling branch that regulates cell growth/proliferation.
AB - The Birt-Hogg-Dubé (BHD) disease is a genetic cancer syndrome. The responsible gene, BHD, has been identified by positional cloning and thought to be a novel tumor suppressor gene. BHD mutations cause many types of diseases including renal cell carcinomas, fibrofolliculomas, spontaneous pneumothorax, lung cysts, and colonic polyps/cancers. By combining Gateway Technology with the Ksp-Cre gene knockout system, we have developed a kidney-specific BHD knockout mouse model. BHDflox/ flox/Ksp-Cre mice developed enlarged kidneys characterized by polycystic kidneys, hyperplasia, and cystic renal cell carcinoma. The affected BHDflox/flox/Ksp-Cre mice died of renal failure at approximate three weeks of age, having blood urea nitrogen levels over tenfold higher than those of BHD flox/+/Ksp-Cre and wild-type littermate controls. We further demonstrated that these phenotypes were caused by inactivation of BHD and subsequent activation of the mTOR pathway. Application of rapamycin, which inhibits mTOR activity, to the affected mice led to extended survival and inhibited further progression of cystogenesis. These results provide a correlation of kidney-targeted gene inactivation with renal carcinoma, and they suggest that the BHD product FLCN, functioning as a cyst and tumor suppressor, like other hamartoma syndrome-related proteins such as PTEN, LKB1, and TSC1/2, is a component of the mTOR pathway, constituting a novel FLCN-mTOR signaling branch that regulates cell growth/proliferation.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0003581
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0003581
M3 - Article
C2 - 18974783
AN - SCOPUS:55849108854
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 3
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 10
M1 - e3581
ER -
