Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: Chromatin compaction upon CDK12 inhibition drives long gene silencing and a combinatorial lethal dependency on PAF1
doi: 10.64898/2026.01.27.701921
Figure Lengend Snippet: A Prostate cancer cells depend on major transcription-associated cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK7, CDK9 and CDK12), whereas normal prostate cells show relative resistance to inhibitors targeting these kinases. Each cell line was cultured for 24 hours before treatment and then treated for 4 days in 50 nM YKL-5-124, 20 nM NVP-2 and 150 nM THZ531, respectively, and their cell viability was assessed using CellTiterGlo. The data is from three biological replicates, each having three technical replicates. B The results show that in the C4-2 cell line, PAF1 knockdown produced significant combined decrease in viability only with CDK12 inhibition. DDB1 knockdown produced significant combined decrease in viability with CDK12 and CDK9 inhibition, but not with CDK7 inhibition. BRD4 knockdown produced significant combined decrease in viability with CDK12, CDK9, and CDK7 inhibition. In the 22RV1 cell line, DDB1 and BRD4 knockdown produced combined decrease in viability with CDK12, CDK9, and CDK7 inhibition, but PAF1 knockdown produced significant combined lethality only with CDK12 inhibition. Cell viability after 4 days of DDB1, BRD4, and PAF1 knockdown with CDK7, CDK9, and CDK12 inhibitor treatments for the last three days. Data were obtained from three biological replicates (each containing three technical replicates), and the standard error of the mean was calculated. Student’s t -test was used to assess significance. C The knockdown of DDB1, BRD4, and PAF1 was confirmed by western blotting in castration-resistant prostate cancer cell lines C4-2 and 22RV1 (n=2).
Article Snippet: Antibodies used are from ThermoFisher Scientific: DDB1 (2B12D1) and PAF1 (A300-172A); Santa Cruz Biotechnology: RNA Pol II (sc-56567), GAPDH (sc-47724); Proteintech: BRD4 (28486-1-AP) and from Abcam: Actin (ab49900).
Techniques: Cell Culture, Knockdown, Produced, Inhibition, Western Blot