DYRK1A activates NFATC1 to increase glioblastoma migration

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most aggressive glioma, and is prone to develop resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy; hence, patients with glioblastoma have a high recurrence rate and a low 1-year survival rate. In addition, the pathogenesis of glioblastoma is complex and largely unknown, and the available treatments are limited. Here, we uncovered a fundamental role of DYRK1A in regulating NFATC1 in GBMs. We found that DYRK1A was highly expressed in glioma and glioblastoma cells, and its expression was positively correlated with that of NFATC1. Moreover, inhibition of DYRK1A promoted NFATC1 degradation in GBM cells and sharply reduced the transactivation of NFATC1, not only by decreasing the expression of NFATC1-targeted genes, but also by reducing the luciferase activity, and vice versa. However, DYRK1A had the opposite effect on NFATC2. Most importantly, our data suggest that DYRK1A inhibition reduces glioblastoma migration. Polypeptides derived from the DYRK1A-targeted motif of NFATC1, by competitively blocking DYRK1A kinase activity on NFATC1, clearly destabilized NFATC1 protein and impaired glioblastoma migration. We propose that the recovery of NFATC1 stability is a key oncogenic event in a large proportion of gliomas, and pharmacological inhibition of DYRK1A by polypeptides could represent a promising therapeutic intervention for GBM.