Abstract 2479: Nuclear promyelocytic leukemia bodies tether to early endosomes during mitosis

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA During mitosis, the nuclear envelope breaks down, leading to potential interactions between cytoplasmic and nuclear components. PML bodies are nuclear structures with tumor suppressor functions. However, the protein responsible for generating these bodies, the promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML), has been shown to support both nuclear and cytoplasmic activities. Here we demonstrate that PML bodies form stable interactions with the cytoplasmic transport vesicles early endosomes immediately following entry into mitosis. The two compartments remain stably associated throughout the mitotic phase and dissociate in the cytoplasm of newly divided daughter cells.  We also show that PML promotes ligand-induced endosome-mediated degradation of the epidermal growth factor receptor, and that a minor subset of PML bodies become anchored to the mitotic spindle during cell division. The study demonstrates a stable mitosis-specific interaction between a cytoplasmic and a nuclear compartment. The implications of these findings will be discussed in relation to PMLs role in tumor suppression and as a target for cancer therapy. Citation Format: Vuk Palibrk, Emma Lang, Anna Lang, Alexander Rowe, Stig Ove Boe. Nuclear promyelocytic leukemia bodies tether to early endosomes during mitosis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2479. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2479