YAP/TEAD Co-Activator Regulated Pluripotency and Chemoresistance in Ovarian Cancer Initiated Cells

Recent evidence suggests that some solid tumors, including ovarian cancer, contain distinct populations of stem cells that are responsible for tumor initiation, growth, chemo-resistance, and recurrence. The Hippo pathway has attracted considerable attention and some investigators have focused on YAP functions for maintaining stemness and cell differentiation. In this study, we successfully isolated the ovarian cancer initiating cells (OCICs) and demonstrated YAP promoted self-renewal of ovarian cancer initiated cell (OCIC) through its downstream co-activator TEAD. YAP and TEAD families were required for maintaining the expression of specific genes that may be involved in OCICs' stemness and chemoresistance. Taken together, our data first indicate that YAP/TEAD co-activator regulated ovarian cancer initiated cell pluripotency and chemo-resistance. It proposed a new mechanism on the drug resistance in cancer stem cell that Hippo-YAP signal pathway might serve as therapeutic targets for ovarian cancer treatment in clinical.