DEK Terminates Diapause by Activation of Quiescent Cells in the Crustacean   Artemia.

DEK Terminates Diapause by Activation of Quiescent Cells in the Crustacean  Artemia. Biochem J. 2019 Jun 12;: Authors: Jia WH, Li AQ, Feng JY, Ding YF, Ye S, Yang JS, Yang WJ Abstract To cope with harsh environments the Artemia  shrimp produces gastrula embryos in diapause, a state of obligate dormancy, having cellular quiescence and suppressed metabolism. The mechanism behind these cellular events remains largely unknown. Here, we study the regulation of cell quiescence using diapause embryos of Artemia We found that Artemia  DEK ( Ar -DEK), a nuclear factor protein, was down-regulated in the quiescent cells of diapause embryos and enriched in the activated cells of post-diapause embryos. Knockdown of Ar-DEK  induced the production of diapause embryos, whereas the control Artemia  released free-swimming nuaplii. Our results indicate that Ar -DEK correlated with termination of cellular quiescence via the increase of euchromatin and decrease of heterochromatin. The phenomena of quiescence have many implications beyond shrimp ecology. In cancer cells, for example, knockdown of DEK also induced a short period of cellular quiescence and increased resistance to environmental stress in MCF-7 and MKN45 cancer cell lines. Analysis of RNA sequences in Artemia  and in MCF-7, revealed that the Wnt and AURKA signaling pathways were all downregulated and the p53 signaling pathway was upregulated upon inhibition of DEK  expression. Our resu...
Source: The Biochemical Journal - Category: Biochemistry Authors: Tags: Biochem J Source Type: research