14-3-3γ Prevents Centrosome Amplification and Neoplastic Progression

More than 80% of malignant tumors show centrosome amplification and clustering. Centrosome amplification results from aberrations in the centrosome duplication cycle, which is strictly coordinated with DNA-replication-cycle. However, the relationship between cell-cycle regulators and centrosome duplicating factors is not well understood. This report demonstrates that 14-3-3γ localizes to the centrosome and 14-3-3γ loss leads to centrosome amplification. Loss of 14-3-3γ results in the phosphorylation of NPM1 at Thr-199, causing early centriole disjunction and centrosome hyper-duplication. The centrosome amplification led to aneuploidy and increased tumor formation in mice. Importantly, an increase in passage of the 14-3-3γ-knockdown cells led to an increase in the number of cells containing clustered centrosomes leading to the generation of pseudo-bipolar spindles. The increase in pseudo-bipolar spindles was reversed and an increase in the number of multi-polar spindles was observed upon expression of a constitutively active 14-3-3-binding-defective-mutant of cdc25C (S216A) in the 14-3-3γ knockdown cells. The increase in multi-polar spindle formation was associated with decreased cell viability and a decrease in tumor growth. Our findings uncover the molecular basis of regulation of centrosome duplication by 14-3-3γ and inhibition of tumor growth by premature activation of the mitotic program and the disruption of centrosome clustering.