$$\rightleftharpoonup{xx}$$
$$\longleftharp{xx}$$,
$$\longrightharp{xx}$$,
The purpose of this assay is to use viral libraries to identify regulators of transcription factors in a relatively quick and inexpensive manner. Aberrant transcriptional activity is associated with cancer and metastasis1,2,3,4,5,6, so targeting transcription factors in cancer cells is a promising therapeutic approach. However, transcription factors are often difficult to target pharmacologically7 and many are required for normal cellular function in adult tissues8,9,10. Targeting the cancer-associated pathways that aberrantly activate transcription factors to drive disease is a more feasible approach with the potential to have less severe side effects. The commercial availability of arrayed lentiviral and retroviral RNAi, CRISPR/CAS9, cDNA, or ORF libraries allows researchers to test the importance of numerous genes in a single experiment. However, a reliable readout for altered transcriptional activity is required.
Here, we describe the use of a dual-luciferase-based transcriptional reporter assay and arrayed lentiviral libraries to identify proteins that regulate transcription factors in cancer cells. In this assay, shRNAs that target cancer-associated genes are delivered to mammalian cancer cells via lentiviral transduction and cells are selected for stable integration using puromycin. The cells are next transfected with a reporter construct that expresses firefly luciferase driven by a promoter specific to the transcription factor that is being investigated and a control construct that expresses Renilla luciferase from a constitutively active promoter that is not responsive to the transcription factor being investigated. We demonstrate this approach with a proof-of-concept screen for regulators of YAP and TAZ, the critical downstream effectors of the Hippo pathway8,10,11. Abnormal activity of YAP and TAZ promotes several steps of the metastatic cascade11 and is observed in many cancers11,12,13. However, how YAP and TAZ become aberrantly activated in some cancer cells is not yet fully understood. YAP and TAZ do not bind DNA, but instead are recruited to promoters by other transcription factors. Members of the TEA domain (TEAD) family of transcription factors are the major binding partners for YAP and TAZ, and are critical for most YAP and TAZ-dependent functions. Our reporter construct expresses firefly luciferase from a YAP/TAZ-TEAD-responsive promoter and previous studies have demonstrated that it faithfully detects changes in YAP-TEAD and TAZ-TEAD transcriptional activity2,14,15.
Our approach is rapid, medium-throughput, and does not require screening facilities, automated robots, or deep sequencing of pooled libraries. The costs are relatively low and there are numerous commercially available libraries to choose from. The required equipment and reagents are also relatively standard in most laboratories. It can be used to screen for regulators of virtually any transcription factor if a luciferase-based reporter exists or is generated. We use this approach to screen shRNAs in cancer cells, but any cell line that can be transfected with reasonable efficiency could be used with any type of arrayed library.