Figure 8. YAP1 is necessary for transformation upon MAP4K4 knockdown and rescues transformation in STRN4 knockdown cells.
(A) Quantification of AI growth obtained following partial MAP4K4 suppression alone or when combined with YAP1 suppression (shYAP1) in HEK TER cells. Transformation induced by partial MAP4K4 suppression depends on YAP1. (B) Quantification of AI growth following STRN4 knockdown with or without co-expression of YAP1 WT or the S5A mutant in HEK TER ST cells. YAP1 rescues the transformation defect of STRN4 suppression by shSTRN4-55 and shSTRN4-58 (immunoblots are shown in Figure 8—figure supplement 1B). (C) Heatmap of ES depicting YAP1 genesets from the literature significantly associated with the MAP4K4 knockdown signature ES using Information Coefficient (IC) as a similarity metric. ssGSEA was performed using these genesets across the CCLE dataset, and enrichment scores are represented as indicated in the color bar, with red indicating relative enrichment and blue depletion (FDR < 0.0001). (D) Heatmap depicting top dependency genes (bottom heatmap) in the Project Achilles dependency profiles that associated with MAP4K4 knockdown signature ES (top heatmap). The top heatmap represents ES from ssGSEA, while the bottom heatmap represent relative dependency (blue indicating strong dependency). Cell lines with low MAP4K4 transcriptional activity (in blue on top) were the most dependent on TEAD1 and TAZ1 (FDR < 0.0001). (E) Heatmap depicting co-dependency analysis of MAP4K4 using IC across the Project Achilles data. The genes most significantly associated with MAP4K4 dependency were enriched for the Hippo/YAP1 pathway, as well as components of the STRIPAK complex (All associations FDR < 0.0001 except TAOK2, SAV1: FDR = 0.002). (Student’s t-test, *p<0.01, **p<0.001, ****p<0.00001, n.s. = not significant).
Figure 8—figure supplement 1. Changes in YAP1 and MAP4K4 protein levels and a proposed model.
