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By 2030, the global colorectal cancer burden is projected to approximately double. This highlights the immediate need to expand our understanding of the etiological origins of colorectal cancer, so that novel therapeutic strategies can be identified and validated. The putative tumor suppressor gene RNF20 encodes a histone H2B mono-ubiquitin ligase and has been found altered/mutated in colorectal and numerous other cancer types. Several studies suggest that RNF20, and by extension mono-ubiquitinated histone H2B (H2Bub1), play important roles in maintaining genome stability in human cells. Indeed, hypomorphic RNF20 expression and/or function have been shown to underlie several phenotypes consistent with genome instability, making aberrant RNF20 biology a potential driver in oncogenesis. Through an evolutionarily conserved trans-histone pathway, RNF20 and H2Bub1 have been shown to modulate downstream di-methylation events at lysines 4 (H3K4me2) and 79 (H3K79me2) of histone H3. Accordingly, understanding the biology associated with RNF20, H2Bub1, H3K4me2, and H3K79me2 is an essential preliminary step towards understanding the etiological origins of cancer-associated RNF20 alterations and identifying a novel therapeutic strategy to selectively kill RNF20-deficient cancers. In this thesis, I employ single-cell imaging, and multiple biochemical techniques to investigate the spatial and temporal patterning and characterize the biology of RNF20, H2Bub1, H3K4me2 and H3K79me2 throughout the cell cycle. In addition, I employ the CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing system to generate RNF20-deficient HCT116 cells. Finally, I employ synthetic lethal strategies to selectively kill RNF20-depleted cells. In conclusion, the research chapters contained within this thesis have characterized putative drivers in cancer (Chapter 3), generated a valuable research reagent for CRISPR-Cas9 ii genome editing experiments (Chapter 4), and identified a novel therapeutic strategy to selectively kill certain cancer cells (Chapter 5). This thesis has increased our understanding of the etiological origins of cancer and generated novel reagents and treatments strategies that after further validation and clinical studies, could be employed to reduce morbidity and mortality rates associated with cancer. / October 2016

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L'intégrité de l'information génétique est essentielle aux fonctions cellulaires et pour éviter l'instabilité génomique, qui est une des caractéristique du cancer. Suite à des cassures double brin (Double Strand Breaks; DSBs), la voie de signalisation de réponse aux dommages de l'ADN est activée dans la cellule qui comprend deux sous voies de signalisation : la jonction d'extrémités non-homologues et la recombinaison homologue. Le complexe TREX-2 associé au pore nucléaire est impliqué dans l'export des ARNm. Chez la levure, TREX-2 est impliqué dans le maintien de la stabilité génomique. Nous nous sommes intéressés au rôle de TREX-2 dans la réparation de DSBs dans les cellules humaines. La déplétion du complexe TREX-2 entraine une réparation de l'ADN par recombinaison homologue insuffisante. De plus, nos résultats démontrent que la protection contre les dommages de l'ADN par TREX-2 dépend aussi de l'équilibre entre H2B an H2Bub1 contrôlé par le module de deubiquitination de SAGA. / The maintenance of proper genetic information is essential to avoid genomic instability, which is a hallmark of cancer. In response to Double Strand Breaks (DSBs), cells initiate the DNA Damage Response (DDR), that acts through two main sub-pathways: non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombination (HR). The nuclear pore-associated TREX-2 complex is involved in mRNA export and has been implicated, in yeast, in genome stability maintenance. Here we investigated the role of TREX-2 in DSB repair in human cells. We find that loss of the scaffold subunit of TREX-2 (GANP) results in DNA repair deficiency by HR. Moreover, we showed that the mechanism through which TREX-2 protects human cells from DNA damage is dependent on an interplay with the co-activator complex SAGA that regulates H2Bub1 histone mark. Our results demonstrate a functional cross-talk between human TREX-2 and the SAGA deubiquitination activity that is important to ensure correct DSB repair during HR.

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