• Molecules and Cells
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• v.46 no.8
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• pp.476-485
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• 2023

Gastric cancer stem-like cells (GCSCs) possess stem cell properties, such as self-renewal and tumorigenicity, which are known to induce high chemoresistance and metastasis. These characteristics of GCSCs are further enhanced by autophagy, worsening the prognosis of patients. Currently, the mechanisms involved in the induction of stemness in GCSCs during autophagy remain unclear. In this study, we compared the cellular responses of GCSCs with those of gastric cancer intestinal cells (GCICs) whose stemness is not induced by autophagy. In response to glucose starvation, the levels of β-catenin and stemness-related genes were upregulated in GCSCs, while the levels of β-catenin declined in GCICs. The pattern of deubiquitinase ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase-L3 (UCH-L3) expression in GCSCs and GCICs was similar to that of β-catenin expression depending on glucose deprivation. We also observed that inhibition of UCH-L3 activity reduced β-catenin protein levels. The interaction between UCH-L3 and β-catenin proteins was confirmed, and it reduced the ubiquitination of β-catenin. Our results suggest that UCH-L3 induces the stabilization of β-catenin, which is required to promote stemness during autophagy activation. Also, UCH-L3 expression was regulated by c-Fos, and the levels of c-Fos increased in response to autophagy activation. In summary, our findings suggest that the inhibition of UCH-L3 during nutrient deprivation could suppress stress resistance of GCSCs and increase the survival rates of gastric cancer patients.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.463-472
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• 2009

Although the possible cellular roles of several ubiquitin-specific proteases (UBPs) were identified in Arabidopsis, almost nothing is known about UBP homologs in rice, a monocot model plant. In this report, we searched the rice genome database (http://signal.salk.edu/cgi-bin/RiceGE) and identified 21 putative UBP family members (OsUBPs) in the rice genome. These OsUBP genes each contain a ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase (UCH) domain with highly conserved Cys and His boxes and were subdivided into 9 groups based on their sequence identities and domain structures. RT-PCR analysis indicated that rice OsUBP genes are expressed at varying degrees in different rice tissues. We isolated a full-length cDNA clone for OsUBP6, which possesses not only a UCH domain, but also an N-terminal ubiquitin motif. Bacterially expressed OsUBP6 was capable of dismantling K48-linked tetra-ubiquitin chains in vitro. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR indicated that OsUBP6 is constitutively expressed in different tissues of rice plants. An in vivo targeting experiment showed that OsUBP6 is predominantly localized to the nucleus in onion epidermal cells. We also examined how knock-out of OsUBP6 affects developmental growth of rice plants. Although homozygous T3 osubp6 T-DNA insertion mutant seedlings displayed slower growth relative to wild type seedlings, mature mutant plants appeared to be normal. These results raise the possibility that loss of OsUBP6 is functionally compensated for by an as-yet unknown OsUBP homolog during later stages of development in rice plants.