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  • Hippo pathway regulation by...
    Li, Fu-Long; Fu, Vivian; Liu, Guangbo; Tang, Tracy; Konradi, Andrei W; Peng, Xiao; Kemper, Esther; Cravatt, Benjamin F; Franklin, J Matthew; Wu, Zhengming; Mayfield, Joshua; Dixon, Jack E; Gerwick, William H; Guan, Kun-Liang

    Nature chemical biology, 10/2022, Volume: 18, Issue: 10
    Journal Article

    The Hippo pathway plays a key role in development, organ size control and tissue homeostasis, and its dysregulation contributes to cancer. The LATS tumor suppressor kinases phosphorylate and inhibit the YAP/TAZ transcriptional co-activators to suppress gene expression and cell growth. Through a screen of marine natural products, we identified microcolin B (MCB) as a Hippo activator that preferentially kills YAP-dependent cancer cells. Structure-activity optimization yielded more potent MCB analogs, which led to the identification of phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins α and β (PITPα/β) as the direct molecular targets. We established a critical role of PITPα/β in regulating LATS and YAP. Moreover, we showed that PITPα/β influence the Hippo pathway via plasma membrane phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate. This study uncovers a previously unrecognized role of PITPα/β in Hippo pathway regulation and as potential cancer therapeutic targets.