Role of a 19S Proteasome Subunit- PSMD10^Gankyrin in Neurogenesis of Human Neural Progenitor Cells

PSMD10^Gankyrin, a proteasome assembly chaperone, is a widely known oncoprotein which aspects many hall mark properties of cancer. However, except proteasome assembly chaperon function its role in normal cell function remains unknown. To address this issue, we induced PSMD10^Gankyrin overexpression in HEK293 cells and the resultant large-scale changes in gene expression profile were analyzed. We constituted networks from microarray data of these differentially expressed genes and carried out extensive topological analyses. The overrecurring yet consistent theme that appeared throughout analysis using varied network metrics is that all genes and interactions identified as important would be involved in neurogenesis and neuronal development. Intrigued we tested the possibility that PSMD10^Gankyrin may be strongly associated with cell fate decisions that commit neural stem cells to differentiate into neurons. Overexpression of PSMD10^Gankyrin in human neural progenitor cells facilitated neuronal differentiation via β-catenin Ngn1 pathway. Here for the first time we provide preliminary and yet compelling experimental evidence for the involvement of a potential oncoprotein - PSMD10^Gankyrin, in neuronal differentiation.