title: Mutations in LRRC50 predispose zebrafish and humans to seminomas.
abstract: Seminoma is a subclass of human testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT), the most frequently observed cancer in young men with a rising incidence. Here we describe the identification of a novel gene predisposing specifically to seminoma formation in a vertebrate model organism. Zebrafish carrying a heterozygous nonsense mutation in Leucine-Rich Repeat Containing protein 50 (lrrc50 also called dnaaf1), associated previously with ciliary function, are found to be highly susceptible to the formation of seminomas. Genotyping of these zebrafish tumors shows loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of the wild-type lrrc50 allele in 44.4% of tumor samples, correlating with tumor progression. In humans we identified heterozygous germline LRRC50 mutations in two different pedigrees with a family history of seminomas, resulting in a nonsense Arg488* change and a missense Thr590Met change, which show reduced expression of the wild-type allele in seminomas. Zebrafish in vivo complementation studies indicate the Thr590Met to be a loss-of-function mutation. Moreover, we show that a pathogenic Gln307Glu change is significantly enriched in individuals with seminoma tumors (13% of our cohort). Together, our study introduces an animal model for seminoma and suggests LRRC50 to be a novel tumor suppressor implicated in human seminoma pathogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Oncology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Sander G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Basten
authors.forename: Erica E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.forename: Ad J M
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Gillis
authors.forename: Ellen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: van Rooijen
authors.forename: Hans
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stoop
authors.forename: Nikolina
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Babala
authors.forename: Ive
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Logister
authors.forename: Zachary G
authors.initials: ZG
authors.lastname: Heath
authors.forename: Trudy N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Jonges
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Katsanis
authors.forename: Emile E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Voest
authors.forename: Freek J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: van Eeden
authors.forename: Rene H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Medema
authors.forename: René F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Ketting
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schulte-Merker
authors.forename: Leendert H J
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Looijenga
authors.forename: Rachel H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Giles
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016147:Genes, Tumor Suppressor; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D009154:Mutation; D018239:Seminoma; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000235:genetics