Characterization of a rhabdomyosarcoma reveals a critical role for SMG7 in cancer cell viability and tumor growth

Soft-tissue sarcomas (STSs) are a rare and diverse group of mesenchymal cancers plagued with aggression, poor response to systemic therapy, and high rates of recurrence. Although STSs generally have low mutational burdens, the most commonly mutated genes are tumor suppressors, which frequently acquire mutations inducing nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). This suggests that STS cells may exploit NMD to suppress these anti-cancer genes. To examine the role that the NMD factor SMG7 plays in STS, we developed an inducible knockout mouse model in the Trp53(−/−) background. Here, we isolated a subcutaneous STS and identified it as a rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS). We report that knockout of SMG7 significantly inhibited NMD in our RMS cells, which led to the induction of NMD targets GADD45b and the tumor suppressor GAS5. The loss of NMD and upregulation of these anti-cancer genes were concomitant with the loss of RMS cell viability and inhibited tumor growth. Importantly, SMG7 was dispensable for homeostasis in our mouse embryonic fibroblasts and adult mice. Overall, our data show that the loss of SMG7 induces a strong anti-cancer effect both in vitro and in vivo. We present here the first evidence that disrupting SMG7 function may be tolerable and provide a therapeutic benefit for STS treatment.