UC Davis

The lethality of the aggressive brain tumor glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) results in part from its strong propensity to invade surrounding normal brain tissue. Although oncogenic drivers such as epidermal growth factor receptor activation and Phosphatase and Tensin homolog inactivation are thought to promote the motility and invasiveness of GBM cells via phosphatidylinostitol 3-kinase activation, other unexplored mechanisms may also contribute to malignancy. Here we demonstrate that several components of the planar cell polarity (PCP) arm of non-canonical Wnt signaling including VANGL1, VANGL2 and FZD7 are transcriptionally upregulated in glioma and correlate with poorer patient outcome. Knockdown of the core PCP pathway component VANGL1 suppresses the motility of GBM cell lines, pointing to an important mechanistic role for this pathway in glioblastoma malignancy. We further observe that restoration of Nrdp1, a RING finger type E3 ubiquitin ligase whose suppression in GBM also correlates with poor prognosis, reduces GBM cell migration and invasiveness by suppressing PCP signaling. Our observations indicate that Nrdp1 physically interacts with the Vangl1 and Vangl2 proteins to mediate the K63-linked polyubiquitination of the Dishevelled, Egl-10 and Pleckstrin (DEP) domain of the Wnt pathway protein Dishevelled (Dvl). Ubiquitination hinders Dvl binding to phosphatidic acid, an interaction necessary for efficient Dvl recruitment to the plasma membrane upon Wnt stimulation of Fzd receptor and for the propagation of downstream signals. We conclude that the PCP pathway contributes significantly to the motility and hence the invasiveness of GBM cells, and that Nrdp1 acts as a negative regulator of PCP signaling by inhibiting Dvl through a novel polyubiquitination mechanism. We propose that the upregulation of core PCP components, together with the loss of the key negative regulator Nrdp1, act coordinately to promote GBM invasiveness and malignancy.