Abstract 2126: Comprehensive transcriptome analysis reveals that nonsense-mediated mRNA decay is not globally suppressed in lung adenocarcinomas

Abstract As a well-known mRNA surveillance mechanism, the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) pathway ensures the rapid degradation of mRNAs containing premature termination codons (PTC). Prior research has shown that features of the tumor microenvironment, such as hypoxia and amino acid deprivation, might inhibit NMD activity. However, a systemic analysis of NMD in cancer is seldom performed. Rather than focusing on only a few NMD targets and using artificial interventions as in previous experiments, we aimed to analyze NMD in cancer from a global perspective. By analyzing lung Adenocarcinomas in detail, we observed comparable decay efficiencies in tumors for both annotated and predicted NMD targets. Interestingly, the expression patterns of key NMD factors are altered, indicating that cancer cells might prefer to use different NMD degradation pathways. We also identified a subset of NMD targets with unique manners in either tumor or adjacent tissues. Besides, our analyses further demonstrate that the NMD efficiencies vary across tumors, supporting the heterozygosity of lung Adenocarcinomas. Citation Format: Xiangyin Kong. Comprehensive transcriptome analysis reveals that nonsense-mediated mRNA decay is not globally suppressed in lung adenocarcinomas. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2126. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2126