Journal of Proteomics & Bioinformatics
Open Access

Abstract

Proteomic Profiling of Ewing Sarcoma Reveals a Role for TRAF6 in Proliferation and Ribonucleoproteins/RNA Processing

Juan Madoz-Gurpide, David Herrero-Martin, Gonzalo Gomez-Lopez, Lourdes Hontecillas-Prieto, Michele Biscuola, Cristina Chamizo, Daniel Garcia-Dominguez, David Marcilla, Ana Teresa Amaral, Jose Luis Ordonez and Enrique de Alava

Notwithstanding advances over the last decade in the comprehension of the molecular biology of Ewing sarcoma (ES), we still lack an understanding of critical issues, especially those regarding its genesis. In particular, little effort has been devoted to characterization of the proteic component of the mechanisms and pathways deployed by the activation of the fusion protein resulting from chromosomal translocation. We decided to investigate the proteic alterations of an ES cell line bearing a representative fusion protein. The combination of RNA interference of EWSFLI1 in the ES cell line TC-71, a proteomic analysis by 2-D electrophoresis and subsequent mass-spectrometry identification, and a global overrepresentation study detected changes in more than 500 spots. Forty-three proteins were identified as being significantly differentially abundant. As expected, we found and validated changes in proteins linked to nucleotide processing, transcription regulation, ribonucleoproteins, helicases, cell-cycle control and proliferation, and metabolic processes. Additionally, TNF receptor-associated factor 6 was revealed as a hub node. Our strategy showed the potential to reveal the protein interplay associated with the known functions of the fusion protein: binding to DNA and RNA in order to act as aberrant transcription factors or potent repressors, or by altering RNA processing.