Signaling by NOTCH1 in Cancer

Stable Identifier
R-HSA-2644603
DOI
10.3180/REACT_160214.1
Type
Pathway
Species
Homo sapiens
ReviewStatus
5/5
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Signaling by NOTCH1 in Cancer
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Human NOTCH1 was cloned as a chromosome 9 gene, translocated to the T-cell beta receptor (TCBR) promoter on chromosome 7 in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) (Ellisen et al. 1991). This translocation, present in only a small percentage of T-ALL patients, results in the overexpression of a truncated NOTCH1 receptor, which lacks almost the entire extracellular domain, in T lymphocytes. Oncogenic NOTCH1 mutations were subsequently found to be present in >50% of T-ALL patients, with hotspots in the heterodimerization domain (HD domain) and PEST domain of NOTCH1 (Weng et al. 2004).

Normal NOTCH1 becomes activated by binding DLL (DLL1 or DLL4) or JAG (JAG1 or JAG2) ligands expressed on the surface of a neighboring cell, which leads to proteolytic cleavage of NOTCH1 by ADAM10/17 and gamma-secretase, and release of the NOTCH1 intracellular domain (NICD1) which regulates expression of genes that play important roles in the development of T lymphocytes (Washburn et al. 1997. Radtke et al. 1999, Maillard et al. 2004, Sambandam et al. 2005, Tan et al. 2005). Mutations in the HD domain, responsible for association of NOTCH1 extracellular and transmembrane regions after furin-mediated cleavage of NOTCH1 precursor, as well as the truncation of the NOTCH1 extracellular domain by the rare T-ALL translocation, enable constitutive production of NICD1, in the absence of ligand binding (Malecki et al. 2006, Ellisen et al. 1991).

Mutations in the NOTCH1 PEST domain interfere with FBXW7 (FBW7)-mediated ubiquitination and degradation of NICD1, resulting in prolonged half-life and increased transcriptional activity of NICD1, which promotes growth and division of T-lymphocytes (Weng et al. 2004, Thompson et al. 2007, O'Neil et al. 2007).

Mutations in the HD domain and PEST domain of NOTCH1 are frequently found in cis in T-ALL. While HD mutations alone result in up to ~10-fold increase in NOTCH1 transcriptional activity and PEST domain mutations alone result in up to ~2-fold increase in NOTCH1 transcriptional activity, in cis mutations of HD and PEST domains act synergistically, increasing NOTCH1 transcriptional activity up to ~40-fold (Weng et al. 2004).

FBXW7 (FBW7), a component of the SCF (SKP1, CUL1, and F-box protein) ubiquitin ligase complex SCF-FBW7 involved in the degradation of NOTCH1 (Oberg et al. 2001, Wu et al. 2001, Fryer et al. 2004), is subject to loss of function mutations in T-ALL (Akhoondi et al. 2007, Thompson et al. 2007, O'Neil et al. 2007) which are mutually exclusive with NOTCH1 PEST domain mutations (Thompson et al. 2007, O'Neil et al. 2007).

Although gamma-secretase inhibitors (GSIs) are successfully used in vitro to inhibit NOTCH1 signaling in T-ALL cell lines, the gamma-secretase complex has many other substrates besides NOTCH. The specificity of GSIs is therefore limited and, as they are not considered to be particularly promising drugs for the clinical treatment of T-ALL (reviewed by Purow, 2012), they have not been annotated.

For a recent review of NOTCH1 signaling in cancer, please refer to Grabher et al. 2006.
Literature References
PubMed ID Title Journal Year
15472075 Activating mutations of NOTCH1 in human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Weng, AP, Ferrando, AA, Lee, W, Morris JP, 4th, Silverman, LB, Sanchez-Irizarry, C, Blacklow, SC, Look, AT, Aster, JC

Science 2004
16612405 Notch 1 activation in the molecular pathogenesis of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia

Grabher, C, von Boehmer, H, Look, AT

Nat Rev Cancer 2006
17646408 The SCFFBW7 ubiquitin ligase complex as a tumor suppressor in T cell leukemia

Thompson, BJ, Buonamici, S, Sulis, ML, Palomero, T, Vilimas, T, Basso, G, Ferrando, AA, Aifantis, I

J Exp Med 2007
11585921 SEL-10 is an inhibitor of notch signaling that targets notch for ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

Wu, G, Lyapina, S, Das, I, Li, J, Gurney, M, Pauley, A, Chui, I, Deshaies, RJ, Kitajewski, J

Mol Cell Biol 2001
15187027 Mastermind critically regulates Notch-mediated lymphoid cell fate decisions

Maillard, I, Weng, AP, Carpenter, AC, Rodriguez, CG, Sai, H, Xu, L, Allman, D, Aster, JC, Pear, WS

Blood 2004
15546612 Mastermind recruits CycC:CDK8 to phosphorylate the Notch ICD and coordinate activation with turnover

Fryer, CJ, White, JB, Jones, KA

Mol Cell 2004
22399357 Notch inhibition as a promising new approach to cancer therapy

Purow, B

Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 2012
17646409 FBW7 mutations in leukemic cells mediate NOTCH pathway activation and resistance to gamma-secretase inhibitors

O'Neil, J, Grim, J, Strack, P, Rao, S, Tibbitts, D, Winter, C, Hardwick, J, Welcker, M, Meijerink, JP, Pieters, R, Draetta, G, Sears, R, Clurman, BE, Look, AT

J Exp Med 2007
16738328 Leukemia-associated mutations within the NOTCH1 heterodimerization domain fall into at least two distinct mechanistic classes

Malecki, MJ, Sanchez-Irizarry, C, Mitchell, JL, Histen, G, Xu, ML, Aster, JC, Blacklow, SC

Mol. Cell. Biol. 2006
11461910 The Notch intracellular domain is ubiquitinated and negatively regulated by the mammalian Sel-10 homolog

Oberg, C, Li, J, Pauley, A, Wolf, E, Gurney, M, Lendahl, U

J Biol Chem 2001
10367900 Deficient T cell fate specification in mice with an induced inactivation of Notch1

Radtke, F, Wilson, A, Stark, G, Bauer, M, van Meerwijk, J, MacDonald, HR, Aguet, M

Immunity 1999
15951813 Notch signaling controls the generation and differentiation of early T lineage progenitors

Sambandam, A, Maillard, I, Zediak, VP, Xu, L, Gerstein, RM, Aster, JC, Pear, WS, Bhandoola, A

Nat. Immunol. 2005
15951812 Requirement for Notch1 signals at sequential early stages of intrathymic T cell development

Tan, JB, Visan, I, Yuan, JS, Guidos, CJ

Nat. Immunol. 2005
17909001 FBXW7/hCDC4 is a general tumor suppressor in human cancer

Akhoondi, S, Sun, D, von der Lehr, N, Apostolidou, S, Klotz, K, Maljukova, A, Cepeda, D, Fiegl, H, Dafou, D, Dofou, D, Marth, C, Mueller-Holzner, E, Corcoran, M, Dagnell, M, Nejad, SZ, Nayer, BN, Zali, MR, Hansson, J, Egyhazi, S, Petersson, F, Sangfelt, P, Nordgren, H, Grander, D, Reed, SI, Widschwendter, M, Sangfelt, O, Spruck, C

Cancer Res. 2007
9118226 Notch activity influences the alphabeta versus gammadelta T cell lineage decision

Washburn, T, Schweighoffer, E, Gridley, T, Chang, D, Fowlkes, BJ, Cado, D, Robey, E

Cell 1997
1831692 TAN-1, the human homolog of the Drosophila notch gene, is broken by chromosomal translocations in T lymphoblastic neoplasms

Ellisen, LW, Bird, J, West, DC, Soreng, AL, Reynolds, TC, Smith, SD, Sklar, J

Cell 1991
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Name Identifier Synonyms
cancer DOID:162 malignant tumor, malignant neoplasm, primary cancer
Cross References
Mondo
Authored
Orlic-Milacic, M  (2013-01-04)
Reviewed
Haw, R  (2013-02-10)
Created
Orlic-Milacic, M  (2012-11-22)
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