/ News, Research, Publication
The cell, 2023, coloured
After review hell, Dr Coomar finally published his PhD work in Molecular Cancer Research - featured on the cover and highlighted by the editors!
Although Dr Coomars research started as a try to use arylsulfonamides (ArSulf) and DCAF15 to create new classes of PROTACs, it went into a different direction once he saw lowered KIF20A levels in his proteomic data. ArSulf act as molecular glues between DCAF15 and RBM39, leading to the latters degradation. As RBM39 is a splicing factor, its degradation causes splicing defects - and one of the victims is KIF20A and KIF20B, both kinesin motor proteins. This downregulation is causing multinucleation in cells with depleated RBM39 levels - a phenotype that has previously been identified, but without a known mechanism.
In his paper, he uses qPCR, cell imaging, proteomics and combines it with (re-analysed) eCLIP data from collaborators to proof the mechanism and made it into the August issue of Molecular Cancer research. If you are interested in reading more about his work, the paper is available as open access. Congratulations to the authors, especially Seemon and Pedro!