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Molecular and Cellular Biology, July 2008, p. 4598-4608, Vol. 28, No. 14
0270-7306/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/MCB.02192-07
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland,1 Department of Pathology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina2
Received 11 December 2007/ Returned for modification 1 February 2008/ Accepted 29 April 2008
We previously created a knock-in mutant mouse harboring a dominantly negative mutant thyroid hormone receptor β (TRβPV/PV mouse) that spontaneously develops a follicular thyroid carcinoma similar to human thyroid cancer. We found that β-catenin, which plays a critical role in oncogenesis, was highly elevated in thyroid tumors of TRβPV/PV mice. We sought to understand the molecular basis underlying aberrant accumulation of β-catenin by mutations of TRβ in vivo. Cell-based studies showed that thyroid hormone (T3) induced the degradation of β-catenin in cells expressing TRβ via proteasomal pathways. In contrast, no T3-induced degradation occurred in cells expressing the mutant receptor (TRβPV). In vitro binding studies and cell-based analyses revealed that β-catenin physically associated with unliganded TRβ or TRβPV. However, in the presence of T3, β-catenin was dissociated from TRβ-β-catenin complexes but not from TRβPV-β-catenin complexes. β-Catenin signaling was repressed by T3 in TRβ-expressing cells through decreasing β-catenin-mediated transcription activity and target gene expression, whereas sustained β-catenin signaling was observed in TRβPV-expressing cells. The stabilization of β-catenin, via association with a mutated TRβ, represents a novel activating mechanism of the oncogenic protein β-catenin that could contribute to thyroid carcinogenesis in TRβPV/PV mice.
Published ahead of print on 12 May 2008.
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