βIII-Tubulin Gene Regulation in Health and Disease

Alastair M P Duly; Felicity C L Kao; Wee Siang Teo; Maria Kavallaris

doi:10.3389/fcell.2022.851542

βIII-Tubulin Gene Regulation in Health and Disease

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Apr 28:10:851542. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.851542. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Alastair M P Duly¹, Felicity C L Kao^{1

2

3}, Wee Siang Teo^{1

2}, Maria Kavallaris^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Children's Cancer Institute, Lowy Cancer Research Center, UNSW Sydney, Randwick, NSW, Australia.
² Australian Center for NanoMedicine, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ School of Women and Children's Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
⁴ UNSW RNA Institute, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Microtubule proteins form a dynamic component of the cytoskeleton, and play key roles in cellular processes, such as vesicular transport, cell motility and mitosis. Expression of microtubule proteins are often dysregulated in cancer. In particular, the microtubule protein βIII-tubulin, encoded by the TUBB3 gene, is aberrantly expressed in a range of epithelial tumours and is associated with drug resistance and aggressive disease. In normal cells, TUBB3 expression is tightly restricted, and is found almost exclusively in neuronal and testicular tissues. Understanding the mechanisms that control TUBB3 expression, both in cancer, mature and developing tissues will help to unravel the basic biology of the protein, its role in cancer, and may ultimately lead to the development of new therapeutic approaches to target this protein. This review is devoted to the transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of TUBB3 in normal and cancerous tissue.

Keywords: TUBB3; cancer; gene regulation; human; microtubule; neuronal tubulin; tubulin; βIII-tubulin.

Publication types

Review