- Jia, Zexiao;
- Yang, Shuxu;
- Li, Mengyao;
- Lei, Zhaoying;
- Ding, Xue;
- Fan, Mingjie;
- Wang, Dixian;
- Xie, Dajiang;
- Zhou, Hui;
- Qiu, Yue;
- Zhuang, Qianqian;
- Li, Dan;
- Yang, Wei;
- Qi, Xuchen;
- Cang, Xiaohui;
- Zhao, Jing-Wei;
- Wang, Wenqi;
- Lin, Aifu;
- Yan, Qingfeng
Neurofibromatosis type 2 is an autosomal dominant multiple neoplasia syndrome and is usually caused by mutations in the neurofibromin 2 (NF2) gene, which encodes a tumor suppressor and initiates the Hippo pathway. However, the mechanism by which NF2 functions in the Hippo pathway isn't fully understood. Here we identified a NF2 c.770-784del mutation from a neurofibromatosis type 2 family. MD simulations showed that this mutation significantly changed the structure of the F3 module of the NF2-FERM domain. Functional assays indicated that the NF2 c.770-784del variant formed LLPS in the cytoplasm with LATS to restrain LATS plasma membrane localization and inactivated the Hippo pathway. Besides, this deletion partly caused a skipping of exon 8 and reduced the protein level of NF2, collectively promoting proliferation and tumorigenesis of meningeal cells. We identified an unrecognized mechanism of LLPS and splicing skipping for the NF2-induced Hippo pathway, which provided new insight into the pathogenesis of neurofibromatosis type 2.