Therapeutically targeting USP5 in MYCN-driven neuroblastoma

Abstract

Advanced neuroblastoma is associated with MYCN amplification and gene amplification of MYCN has been shown to correlate with poor prognosis in patients. The MYC family of proteins have been widely researched due to their important roles in the development of various cancers including neuroblastoma. Pharmaceutical companies and researchers have attempted to develop novel small molecule inhibitors which are able to target c-MYC and MYCN directly. However there has been limited success in the development of these inhibitors, and to date no MYCN direct inhibitors are in clinical use or clinal trials. It is known that MYCN regulates the transcription of several genes that are involve in cell proliferation and cell death including both tumour suppressor and oncogenes. Therefore, is has been suggest that rather targeting MYCN directly, it may be a better approach toidentify and target proteins which regulate or directly bind to MYCN as potential therapeutic targets. The hypotheses for this thesis is that USP5 acts in an oncogenic manner by directly interacting with MYCN and regulate MYCN stability to promote neuroblastoma tumorigenesis and that novel small molecule compounds are potent and selective in targeting MYCN and USP5 in MYCN-driven neuroblastoma tumorigenesis. Three aims have been established to assess these hypotheses. The first aim is to determine the functional role of USP5 in neuroblastoma tumorigenesis using various phenotypical assays in vitro and in vivo models. The rationale of this aim is to investigate whether USP5 is a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of neuroblastoma. Several studies have reported that USP5 acts in an oncogenic manner in various adult cancers by regulating different cellular pathways. Therefore, aim two of the study is to determine whether USP5 function is in MYCN dependent manner and to study the mechanism of USP5 as an oncogenic protein in neuroblastoma. By addressing this aim this thesis will explore USP5’s role in neuroblastoma tumorigenesis and provide insight into the molecular mechanism which used by USP5 to stabilize MYCN. The third aim of this thesis is to evaluate the efficacy and study the drug action of novel USP5 and MYCN inhibitors for the treatment of neuroblastoma. This aim will demonstratethe importance of developing novel compounds with clinical potential for better targeted treatment options.

In summary, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the role of USP5 in MYCN-drive neuroblastoma and highlight a novel therapeutic option for the treatment of MYCN amplified neuroblastoma by targeting the interaction between USP5 and MYCN.