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SOX2 phosphorylation during mitosis limits genomic damage

delete2026-02-01
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PRE
AI
C
Charles A.C. Williams
D
Dounia Djeghloul
N
Nicolás Veland
A
Alhafidz Hamdan
M
Maria Kalantzaki
E
Erika Lo
R
Robert S. Illingworth
A
Alex von Kriegsheim
A
Amanda G. Fisher
A
Abdenour Soufi
S
Steven M. Pollard *
DOI:10.1101/gad.352664.125delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Pioneer transcription factors (TFs) such as SOX2 play critical roles in the control of stem cell identity and are dysregulated in many human cancers. For example, SOX2 regulates the self-renewal of neural stem cells (NSCs) and is typically highly expressed in glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs), where it is known to induce an immature NSC-like state. Here, we explored the regulation of SOX2 by phosphorylation during NSC division and identified an unexpected role for excessive SOX2 pioneer activity in driving mitotic damage. We found that SOX2 phosphorylation during mitosis is a key switch that prevents promiscuous chromatin binding across the genome. Without this regulatory control, excessive SOX2 in mitosis triggers chromatin opening, resulting in increased mitotic transit times and increased chromosomal damage. Therefore, elevated levels of SOX2 in cancers may have dual oncogenic roles: inducing stemness during interphase via its well-known transcriptional roles but simultaneously promoting chromosomal disruptions through unconstrained pioneer factor activity.
Keywords:
SOX2
neural stem cell
phosphorylation
mitosis
heterochromatin
DNA damage
mitotic bookmarking
transcription

Journal

G
GENES & DEVELOPMENT
IF:
7.7
Papers:
71
Citations:
0

Organization

I
imperial college london
Scholars:
9.2K
Papers: 4.1K
Citations: 0
U
University of Edinburgh
Scholars:
5.1W
Papers: 4.6W
Citations: 71