Tania Nzouatou Fabo

All Publications

• Integrative analyses highlight functional regulatory variants associated with neuropsychiatric diseases. Nature genetics Guo, M. G., Reynolds, D. L., Ang, C. E., Liu, Y., Zhao, Y., Donohue, L. K., Siprashvili, Z., Yang, X., Yoo, Y., Mondal, S., Hong, A., Kain, J., Meservey, L., Fabo, T., Elfaki, I., Kellman, L. N., Abell, N. S., Pershad, Y., Bayat, V., Etminani, P., Holodniy, M., Geschwind, D. H., Montgomery, S. B., Duncan, L. E., Urban, A. E., Altman, R. B., Wernig, M., Khavari, P. A. 2023

  Abstract

  Noncoding variants of presumed regulatory function contribute to the heritability of neuropsychiatric disease. A total of 2,221 noncoding variants connected to risk for ten neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia, were studied in developing human neural cells. Integrating epigenomic and transcriptomic data with massively parallel reporter assays identified differentially-active single-nucleotide variants (daSNVs) in specific neural cell types. Expression-gene mapping, network analyses and chromatin looping nominated candidate disease-relevant target genes modulated by these daSNVs. Follow-up integration of daSNV gene editing with clinical cohort analyses suggested that magnesium transport dysfunction may increase neuropsychiatric disease risk and indicated that common genetic pathomechanisms may mediate specific symptoms that are shared across multiple neuropsychiatric diseases.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41588-023-01533-5

  View details for PubMedID 37857935

  View details for PubMedCentralID 4112379

• Skin basal cell carcinomas assemble a pro-tumorigenic spatially organized and self-propagating Trem2+ myeloid niche. Nature communications Haensel, D., Daniel, B., Gaddam, S., Pan, C., Fabo, T., Bjelajac, J., Jussila, A. R., Gonzalez, F., Li, N. Y., Chen, Y., Hou, J., Patel, T., Aasi, S., Satpathy, A. T., Oro, A. E. 2023; 14 (1): 2685

  Abstract

  Cancer immunotherapies have revolutionized treatment but have shown limited success as single-agent therapies highlighting the need to understand the origin, assembly, and dynamics of heterogeneous tumor immune niches. Here, we use single-cell and imaging-based spatial analysis to elucidate three microenvironmental neighborhoods surrounding the heterogeneous basal cell carcinoma tumor epithelia. Within the highly proliferative neighborhood, we find that TREM2+ skin cancer-associated macrophages (SCAMs) support the proliferation of a distinct tumor epithelial population through an immunosuppression-independent manner via oncostatin-M/JAK-STAT3 signaling. SCAMs represent a unique tumor-specific TREM2+ population defined by VCAM1 surface expression that is not found in normal homeostatic skin or during wound healing. Furthermore, SCAMs actively proliferate and self-propagate through multiple serial tumor passages, indicating long-term potential. The tumor rapidly drives SCAM differentiation, with intratumoral injections sufficient to instruct naive bone marrow-derived monocytes to polarize within days. This work provides mechanistic insights into direct tumor-immune niche dynamics independent of immunosuppression, providing the basis for potential combination tumor therapies.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-37993-w

  View details for PubMedID 37164949

• Oncogenic CDK13 mutations impede nuclear RNA surveillance SCIENCE Insco, M. L., Abraham, B. J., Dubbury, S. J., Kaltheuner, I. H., Dust, S., Wu, C., Chen, K. Y., Liu, D., Bellaousov, S., Cox, A. M., Martin, B. E., Zhang, T., Ludwig, C. G., Fabo, T., Modhurima, R., Esgdaille, D. E., Henriques, T., Brown, K. M., Chanock, S. J., Geyer, M., Adelman, K., Sharp, P. A., Young, R. A., Boutz, P. L., Zon, L. I. 2023; 380 (6642): eabn7625

  Abstract

  RNA surveillance pathways detect and degrade defective transcripts to ensure RNA fidelity. We found that disrupted nuclear RNA surveillance is oncogenic. Cyclin-dependent kinase 13 (CDK13) is mutated in melanoma, and patient-mutated CDK13 accelerates zebrafish melanoma. CDK13 mutation causes aberrant RNA stabilization. CDK13 is required for ZC3H14 phosphorylation, which is necessary and sufficient to promote nuclear RNA degradation. Mutant CDK13 fails to activate nuclear RNA surveillance, causing aberrant protein-coding transcripts to be stabilized and translated. Forced aberrant RNA expression accelerates melanoma in zebrafish. We found recurrent mutations in genes encoding nuclear RNA surveillance components in many malignancies, establishing nuclear RNA surveillance as a tumor-suppressive pathway. Activating nuclear RNA surveillance is crucial to avoid accumulation of aberrant RNAs and their ensuing consequences in development and disease.

  View details for DOI 10.1126/science.abn7625

  View details for Web of Science ID 000989671000002

  View details for PubMedID 37079685

  View details for PubMedCentralID PMC10184553

• Functional characterization of human genomic variation linked to polygenic diseases. Trends in genetics : TIG Fabo, T., Khavari, P. 2023

  Abstract

  The burden of human disease lies predominantly in polygenic diseases. Since the early 2000s, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genetic variants and loci associated with complex traits. These have ranged from variants in coding sequences to mutations in regulatory regions, such as promoters and enhancers, as well as mutations affecting mediators of mRNA stability and other downstream regulators, such as 5' and 3'-untranslated regions (UTRs), long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), and miRNA. Recent research advances in genetics have utilized a combination of computational techniques, high-throughput in vitro and in vivo screening modalities, and precise genome editing to impute the function of diverse classes of genetic variants identified through GWAS. In this review, we highlight the vastness of genomic variants associated with polygenic disease risk and address recent advances in how genetic tools can be used to functionally characterize them.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tig.2023.02.014

  View details for PubMedID 36997428