The Role of UBR5 Mutations in the Pathogenesis of Mantle CELL Lymphoma

Intro: Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) accounts for 6% of non-Hodgkin lymphomas and represents a particularly challenging disease with patient outcomes inferior to most other lymphoma subtypes. Using targeted capture sequencing of MCL biopsy samples, we recently reported frequent mutations (18%) in UBR5, a gene encoding an E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase that has not been previously implicated in lymphomagenesis. All mutations were clustered within 100bp in or around exon 58 of UBR5 and truncate the reading frame or change a key lysine residue. These mutations are predicted to result in the loss of the conserved cysteine residue in the HECT-domain, which is responsible for binding the ubiquitin co-factor. The recurrence and clustering of UBR5 mutations suggest their critical pathogenic involvement in a subgroup of MCL that might be therapeutically targetable. The aim of this study is to determine UBR5 mutation-associated proteome changes and altered cell signaling.

Methods: As seen in MCL patients, mutations in exon 58 of UBR5 were introduced to three MCL cell lines (Granta-519, Jeko-1, and Mino) using the CRISPR-Cas9 genome engineering tool. First, mass spectrometry-based immunoprecipitation proteomics (IP-MS) was employed to identify differences in UBR5 interacting partners between UBR5 mutant and wildtype (WT) cells. Candidate UBR5 interacting proteins were validated by flow cytometry, western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation, and immunofluorescence. Next, global proteomes of UBR5 mutants and WT were analyzed by Tandem Mass Tag (TMT)-based mass spectrometry quantification to identify proteins with differential expression due to the UBR5 mutations.

Results: The IP-MS analysis of WT vs UBR5 mutants revealed histone and cell cycle control proteins as candidate differential UBR5 interacting proteins (p<0.05). Particularly, histones H1, H4, and H2AFX, as well as the cell cycle genes CDC5L, BUB3, MAP4, RAD50 and CDK11B were identified as candidate UBR5 interacting partners. The global proteome analysis identified a set of differentially expressed genes (mutant vs wt; p<0.05) that are common among the MCL cell lines with the same direction of change. Gene ontology analysis of this set revealed DNA damage response, chromosome organization, and cell cycle response pathways as the predominant pathways affected. Moreover, our preliminary functional studies indicate constitutive phosphorylation of H2AFX in UBR5 mutants vs WT in line with the role of UBR5 in DNA damage response.

Conclusions: Our results are consistent with UBR5 functioning as a key regulator of cell signalling and strongly suggest UBR5 as a novel regulator of histone modifications and DNA damage response. These findings provide an experimentally valid platform for further functional investigation and testing of target therapies for MCL harbouring UBR5 mutations.