Eiríkur Steingrímsson

University of Iceland | HI · Biomedical Center

The ability of transcription factors to discriminate between different classes of binding sites associated with specific biological functions underpins effective gene regulation in development and homeostasis. How this is achieved is poorly understood. The microphthalmia-associated transcription factor MITF is a lineage-survival oncogene that plays...

MITF, a basic-Helix-Loop-Helix Zipper (bHLHZip) transcription factor, plays vital roles in melanocyte development and functions as an oncogene. To explore MITF regulation and its role in melanoma, we conducted a genetic screen for suppressors of the Mitf-associated pigmentation phenotype. An intragenic Mitf mutation was identified, leading to termi...

Autophagy is a housekeeping mechanism tasked with eliminating misfolded proteins and damaged organelles to maintain cellular homeostasis. Autophagy deficiency results in increased oxidative stress, DNA damage and chronic cellular injury. Among the core genes in the autophagy machinery, ATG7 is required for autophagy initiation and autophagosome for...

In developing melanocytes and in melanoma cells, multiple paralogs of the Activating-enhancer-binding Protein 2 family of transcription factors (TFAP2) contribute to expression of genes encoding pigmentation regulators, but their interaction with Microphthalmia transcription factor (MITF), a master regulator of these cells, is unclear. Supporting t...

Hedgehog signaling is essential for development, crucial for normal anatomical arrangement and activated during tissue damage repair. Dysregulation of hedgehog signaling is associated with cancer, developmental disorders and other diseases including osteoarthritis. The hedgehog gene was first discovered in Drosophila melanogaster, and the pathway i...

The ability of transcription factors to discriminate between different classes of binding sites associated with specific biological functions underpins effective gene regulation in development and homeostasis. How this is achieved is poorly understood. The microphthalmia-associated transcription factor MITF is a lineage-survival oncogene that plays...

Transcription factors in the Activating-enhancer-binding Protein 2 (TFAP2) family redundantly regulate gene expression in melanocytes and melanoma. Previous ChIP-seq experiments indicate that TFAP2A and Microphthalmia-associated Transcription Factor (MITF), a master regulator in these cell types, co-activate enhancers of genes promoting pigmentatio...

Although expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) have been powerful in identifying susceptibility genes from genome-wide association study (GWAS) findings, most trait-associated loci are not explained by eQTLs alone. Alternative QTLs, including DNA methylation QTLs (meQTLs), are emerging, but cell-type-specific meQTLs using cells of disease orig...

While the major drivers of melanoma initiation, including activation of NRAS/BRAF and loss of PTEN or CDKN2A , have been identified, the role of key transcription factors that impose altered transcriptional states in response to deregulated signaling is not well understood. The POU domain transcription factor BRN2 is a key regulator of melanoma inv...

Melanocytes originate in the neural crest as precursor cells which then migrate and proliferate to reach their destination where they differentiate into pigment‐producing cells. Melanocytes not only determine the color of hair, skin and eyes but also protect against the harmful effects of UV irradiation. The establishment of the melanocyte lineage...

While expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) have been powerful in identifying susceptibility genes from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) findings, most trait-associated loci are not explained by eQTL alone. Alternative QTLs including DNA methylation QTL (meQTL) are emerging, but cell-type-specific meQTL using cells of disease origin has b...

While the major drivers of melanoma initiation, including activation of NRAS/BRAF and loss of PTEN or CDKN2A, have been identified, the role of key transcription factors that impose altered transcriptional states in response to deregulated signaling is not well understood. The POU domain transcription factor BRN2 is a key regulator of melanoma inva...

The microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is a critical regulator of melanocyte development and differentiation. It also plays an important role in melanoma where it has been described as a molecular rheostat that, depending on activity levels, allows reversible switching between different cellular states. Here, we show that MITF di...

The MITF, TFEB, TFE3 and TFEC (MiT-TFE) proteins belong to the basic helix-loop-helix family of leucine zipper transcription factors. MITF is crucial for melanocyte development and differentiation, and has been termed a lineage-specific oncogene in melanoma. The three related proteins MITF, TFEB and TFE3 have been shown to be involved in the biogen...

The Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is at the core of melanocyte and melanoma fate specification. The related factors TFEB and TFE3 have been shown to be instrumental for transcriptional regulation of genes involved in lysosome biogenesis and autophagy, cellular processes important for mediating nutrition signals and recycling...

The microphthalmia associated transcription factor (MITF) is a critical regulator of melanocyte development and differentiation. It also plays an important role in melanoma where it has been described as a molecular rheostat that, depending on activity levels, allows reversible switching between different cellular states. Here we show that MITF dir...

Mutations in more than 150 genes are responsible for inherited hearing loss, with thousands of different, severe causal alleles that vary among populations. The Israeli Jewish population includes communities of diverse geographic origins, revealing a wide range of deafness‐associated variants and enabling clinical characterization of the associated...

Variants in more than 150 genes are responsible for inherited hearing loss, with different causal alleles in different populations. The Israeli Jewish population includes communities of diverse geographic origins, revealing a wide range of deafness-associated variants and enabling clinical characterization of the associated phenotypes. Our goal was...

It is widely assumed that decreasing transcription factor DNA-binding affinity reduces transcription initiation by diminishing occupancy of sequence-specific regulatory elements. However, in vivo transcription factors find their binding sites while confronted with a large excess of low-affinity degenerate motifs. Here, using the melanoma lineage su...

Cutaneous melanoma arises from melanocytes following genetic, epigenetic and allogenetic (i.e. other than epi/genetic) modifications. An estimated 10% of cutaneous melanoma cases are due to inherited variants or de novo mutations in approximately 20 genes, found using linkage, next-generation sequencing and association studies. Based on these studi...

Neuroplasticity forms the basis for neuronal circuit complexity and differences between otherwise similar circuits. We show that the Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf) plays a central role in intrinsic plasticity of olfactory bulb (OB) projection neurons. Mitral and tufted (M/T) neurons from Mitf mutant mice are hyperexcitable, h...

Purpose The microphthalmia‐associated transcription factor (Mitf) gene is crucial for development of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and photoreceptors. Loss of function mutations in this gene can cause ocular hypopigmentation, microphthalmia and blindness. Mice heterozygous for the Mitfmi‐wh/+ mutation have been used as a model for Waardenbur...

Purpose Mice carrying different mutations in the microphthalmia‐associated transcription factor (Mitf) gene, affect the normal the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) resulting in microphthalmia. The MitfK243R/K243R; Tyr::Cre mice have an induced conditional mutation, where Lysine 243 is mutated to Arginine, thus affecting DNA binding. The purpose of...

Interrupted dimeric coiled coil segments are found in a broad range of proteins and generally confer selective functional properties such as binding to specific ligands. However, there is only one documented case of a basic-helix-loop-helix leucine zipper transcription factor-microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF)-in which an inserti...

Cholangiocarcinoma is an aggressive cancer originating from the bile duct. Although cholangiocarcinoma does occur in families, to date no specific causative gene has been identified. We identified ATG7 as a cancer susceptibility gene using a joint genetic analysis of an extended pedigree with familial cholangiocarcinoma in combination with a popula...

Mutations in the microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf) gene can cause retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and retinal dysfunction and degeneration. We examined retinal and RPE structure and function in 3 month old mice homo- or heterozygous or compound heterozygous for different Mitf mutations (Mitfmi-vga9/+, Mitfmi-enu22(398)/Mitfmi-e...

The melanocyte-inducing transcription factor (MITF)–low melanoma transcriptional signature is predictive of poor outcomes for patients, but little is known about its biological significance, and animal models are lacking. Here, we used zebrafish genetic models with low activity of Mitfa (MITF-low) and established that the MITF-low state is causal o...

The MITF transcription factor is a master regulator of melanocyte development and a critical factor in melanomagenesis. The related transcription factors TFEB and TFE3 regulate lysosomal activity and autophagy processes known to be important in melanoma. Here we show that MITF binds the CLEAR- box element in the promoters of lysosomal and autophago...

Neuroplasticity forms the basis for neuronal circuit complexity and can determine differences between otherwise similar circuits. Although synaptic plasticity is fairly well characterized, much less is known about the molecular mechanisms underlying intrinsic plasticity, especially its transcriptional regulation. We show that the Microphthalmia-ass...

Osteoarthritis has a highly negative impact on quality of life because of the associated pain and loss of joint function. Here we describe the largest meta-analysis so far of osteoarthritis of the hip and the knee in samples from Iceland and the UK Biobank (including 17,151 hip osteoarthritis patients, 23,877 knee osteoarthritis patients, and more...

Purpose Increased expression of Vacuolar‐type H⁺ ATPases (V‐ATPases), in the plasma membrane of cancer cells has been suggested to contribute to the development of aggressive cancer phenotypes by promoting acidic tumor microenvironments. Accumulating data suggest that proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) may elicit a chemopreventive effect via V‐ATPase in...

Although mast cell distribution has been described in both human and canine hearts, cardiac mast cells in mice have yet to be categorically localized. We therefore sought to describe mast cell distribution within the mouse heart and characterize their dependence on the Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf). Cardiac mast cells were v...

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Autophagy is a degradation pathway important for cellular homeostasis. The E1-like enzyme ATG7 is a key component of the autophagy machinery, with the main function of mediating the lipidation of LC3/GABARAP during autophagosome formation. By analysing mRNA-sequencing data we found that in addition to the full-length ATG7 isoform, various tissues e...

Significance Signaling pathways ultimately exert their influence on cell behavior by regulating the activity of transcription factors that drive gene expression programs associated with specific cell phenotypes. How transcription factors integrate the outputs from multiple independent signaling events to coordinate cell behavior is a key issue. Her...

Microphthalmia‐associated transcription factor (MITF) is a member of the basic helix‐loop‐helix leucine zipper (bHLH‐Zip) family and functions as the master regulator of the melanocytic lineage. MITF‐M is the predominant isoform expressed in melanocytes and melanoma cells and, unlike other MITF isoforms, it is constitutively nuclear. Mutational ana...

Background The use of proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) has grown worldwide, and there are concerns about increased unsubstantiated long-term use. The aim of the study was to describe the real-world use of PPIs over the past decade in an entire national population. Methods This was a nationwide population-based drug-utilization study. Patterns of outp...

Supplementary Material, supplementary_material – Proton-pump inhibitors among adults: a nationwide drug-utilization study

Numerous loci of large effect have been shown to underlie phenotypic variation between species. However, loci with subtle effects are presumably more frequently involved in microevolutionary processes, but have rarely been discovered. We explore the genetic basis of shape variation in the first upper molar of hybrid mice between Mus musculus muscul...

Shape data used in the association mapping. The dimensionality of the molar shape data was reduced using a PCA. The centroid size and PC scores for the first 18 PCs for each mouse are shown. These PC scores were used as phenotypes in the association mapping implemented in GEMMAX.

(A) Shape comparison between Mitf mutants and wild-type B6 mice. A Hotelling T2 test was performed to evaluate the difference in mean shape between mutant and wildtype groups; p-value, test statistic, and sample size (N) are shown. The Procrustes distances between mutant and wild type mean shapes are also indicated. *The comparison between heterozy...

The oncogenic D816V mutation of the KIT receptor is well characterized in systemic mastocytosis and acute myeloid leukemia. Although KITD816V has been found in melanoma, its function and involvement in this malignancy is not understood. Here we show that KITD816V induces tyrosine phosphorylation of MITF through a triple protein complex formation be...

Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) is pivotal for the development of different cell lineages such as melanocytes, retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells and osteoclasts. Most of the information on the role of MITF has come from studying the many different mutations at the mouse microphthalmia (mi) locus. Mice that are heterozygou...

Purpose Microphthalmia‐associated transcription factor (MITF) regulates the differentiation and development of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Mice that lack functional MITF do not develop the RPE and have microphthalmia. Recent studies have involved MITF in autophagy regulation in other cell types. The purpose of this study was to examine if...

Purpose The Mitf (microphthalmia-associated transcription factor) gene that is essential for the normal development of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Mutations in this gene can cause hypopigmentation, microphthalmia and blindness. The purpose of this work was to analyze the retinal function and morphology in mice with specific Mitf mutations...

Autophagy is considered a therapeutic target in various cancer types, including melanoma. The transcription factors TFEB and TFE3 have been shown to play a key role in autophagy regulation in various cell types by affecting gene expression required for this process. A close relative to these factors is the transcription factor MITF; often termed th...

Melanocytes are pigment producing cells derived from the neural crest. They are primarily found in the skin and hair follicles, but can also be found in other tissues including the eye, ear and heart. Here, we describe the distribution of pigmented cells in C57BL/6J mouse meninges, the membranes that envelope the brain. These cells contain melanoso...

The v-ATPase is a fundamental eukaryotic enzyme central to cellular homeostasis. Although its impact on key metabolic regulators such as TORC1 is well-documented, our knowledge of mechanisms that regulate v-ATPase activity is limited. Here, we report that the Drosophila transcription factor Mitf is a master regulator of this holoenzyme. Mitf direct...

Melanocytes and their precursor melanoblasts depend on the Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) for most decisions, including specification, differentiation, function, survival and proliferation. MITF also plays an important role in melanoma where it is essential for maintaining tumor cell survival. As MITF plays multiple roles, it...

Vitiligo is the most common depigmenting disorder resulting from the loss of melanocytes from the basal epidermal layer. The pathogenesis of the disease is likely multifactorial and involves autoimmune causes as well as oxidative and mechanical stress. It is important to identify early events in vitiligo, to clarify pathogenesis, improve diagnosis...

Freckles, the lay term for ephelides and lentigines, are important pigmentation characteristics observed in humans. Both are affected by sunlight; ephelides are largely genetically determined but induced by sunlight whereas lentigines are induced by sun exposure and photodamage of the skin. However, despite being commonly observed, we know very lit...

The vast amount of whole genome sequence information generated and made freely available in the last few years has opened a whole new avenue of genetic research. For example, genome wide association studies have highlighted the role of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in various different phenotypic traits and chromatin immunoprecipitation se...

Sequence polymorphisms linked to human diseases and phenotypes in genome-wide association studies often affect noncoding regions. A SNP within an intron of the gene encoding Interferon Regulatory Factor 4 (IRF4), a transcription factor with no known role in melanocyte biology, is strongly associated with sensitivity of skin to sun exposure, freckle...

The basic-helix-loop-helix-leucine zipper (bHLHZip) protein MITF (microphthalmia-associated transcription factor) is a master regulator of melanocyte development. Mutations in MITF have been found in patients with the dominantly inherited hypopigmentation and deafness syndromes Waardenburg syndrome type 2A (WS2A) and Tietz syndrome (TS). Additional...

Low bone mineral density (BMD) is used as a parameter of osteoporosis. Genome-wide association studies of BMD have hitherto focused on BMD as a quantitative trait, yielding common variants of small effects that contribute to the population diversity in BMD. Here we use BMD as a dichotomous trait, searching for variants that may have a direct effect...

The receptor tyrosine kinase c-Kit is an essential regulator of melanocyte and melanoma development. Alternative splicing of c-Kit produces one long variant, c-Kit(+), with a tetrapeptide GNNK located in the extracellular juxtamembrane domain, and one short variant, c-Kit(-), which lacks this sequence. In this study we characterize for the first ti...

Branching morphogenesis is a mechanism used by many species for organogenesis and tissue maintenance. Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the sprouty protein family are believed to be critical regulators of branching morphogenesis. The aim of this study was to analyze the expression of Sprouty-2 (...

Expression of SPRY2 in virgin, pregnant and lactating gland. SPRY2 is present at all developmental stages in the adult mammary gland with highest expression seen during lactation. Actin used as a loading control. (TIF)

SPRY2 knock down result in increased pERK activity. Knock down of SPRY2 result in approximately 20% increase in pERK activity. Actin used as a loading control. (TIF)