GSE173200
The role of mitochondrial calcium in embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma
Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), the most common paediatric soft-tissue sarcoma, is characterized by cells of skeletal muscle origin that fail to both irreversibly exit the cell cycle and complete skeletal muscle differentiation. Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) is the most prevalent subtype of RMS and its molecular signatures has been associated with metabolism defects and increased oxidative stress. However, the details of the contributing factors or molecules have not been studied. Both metabolism and oxidative stress are associated with mitochondrial functions and an important molecule that regulates mitochondrial functions is calcium. Till date, there has been no studies that examine the role of mitochondrial calcium in ERMS. In addition, the molecular component of mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex, which is responsible for the uptake of mitochondrial calcium was only discovered in 2012. Since then, there has been an increasing interest in investigating the role of mitochondrial calcium and mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex in various cancers. Mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU), the main channel forming protein is often found to be dysregulated in various cancers. Our preliminary data has shown that mitochondrial calcium is dysregulated in ERMS due to overexpression of MCU. This dysregulation of mitochondrial calcium has led to multiple mitochondrial dysfunctions and oncogenic phenotypes. Hence, we would like to investigate the downstream targets of MCU in order to identify the mechanism through which MCU regulates oncogenic phenotypes in ERMS. Overall design: Examination of downstream targets of MCU through transient MCU knockdown in RD cell line. Triplicates of MCU knockdown cells and control cells were analysed.