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BACKGROUND: Testicular germ cell tumors (TGCT) are the most common cancer entities in young men with increasing incidence observed in the last decades. For therapeutic management it is important, that TGCT are divided into several histological subtypes. MED15 is part of the multiprotein Mediator complex which presents an integrative hub for transcriptional regulation and is known to be deregulated in several malignancies, such as prostate cancer and bladder cancer role, whereas the role of the Mediator complex in TGCT has not been investigated so far. Aim of the study was to investigate the implication of MED15 in TGCT development and its stratification into histological subtypes. METHODS: Immunohistochemical staining (IHC) against Mediator complex subunit MED15 was conducted on a TGCT cohort containing tumor-free testis (n = 35), intratubular germ cell neoplasia unclassified (IGCNU, n = 14), seminomas (SEM, n = 107) and non-seminomatous germ cell tumors (NSGCT, n = 42), further subdivided into embryonic carcinomas (EC, n = 30), yolk sac tumors (YST, n = 5), chorionic carcinomas (CC, n = 5) and teratomas (TER, n = 2). Quantification of MED15 protein expression was performed through IHC followed by semi-quantitative image analysis using the Definiens software. RESULTS: In tumor-free seminiferous tubules, MED15 protein expression was absent or only low expressed in spermatogonia. Interestingly, the precursor lesions IGCNU exhibited heterogeneous but partly very strong MED15 expression. SEM weakly express the Mediator complex subunit MED15, whereas NSGCT and especially EC show significantly enhanced expression compared to tumor-free testis. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, MED15 is differentially expressed in tumor-free testis and TGCT. While MED15 is absent or low in tumor-free testis and SEM, NSGCT highly express MED15, hinting at the diagnostic potential of this marker to distinguish between SEM and NSGCT. Further, the precursor lesion IGCNU showed increased nuclear MED15 expression in the preinvasive precursor cells, which may provide diagnostic value to distinguish between benign and pre-malignant testicular specimen, and may indicate a role for MED15 in carcinogenesis in TGCT. Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2015 peerReviewed

The Mediator complex was originally discovered in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and has since then been shown to be required for transcriptional regulation both in vitro and in vivo. The Mediator complex also stimulates basal, unregulated transcription and serves as a bridge by conveying signals from promoter-bound transcriptional regulatory proteins such as activators and repressors to the RNA Polymerase II general transcriptional machinery. The Mediator consists of 21 subunits and can be divided into three distinct modules head, middle and tail. Despite the tremendous progress that has been achieved so far in characterizing the Mediator complex both functionally and structurally, many aspects of the complex are not yet well understood. The objective of this work is to achieve further understanding of the Mediator complex by studying the folding of different protein subunits, their interactions and how that affects assembly of the Mediator complex. In our first study we made a temperature-sensitive med21 mutant and used it to identify genes that can suppress the mutation when present in high copy number. Among the 10 genes that we identified, the strongest suppressors were Med7 and Med10, which encode Mediator subunits, and Ash1, which encodes a repressor of the HO gene. We also used 2-hybrid experiments and immunoprecipitation to study protein-protein interactions between Med21 and the Med4, Med7 and Med10 proteins which are all essential for viability and located within the middle domain of the Mediator complex. We found that the N-terminal 2-8 amino acids of Med21 are required for interactions with Med7 and Med10. These results led us to propose a model in which the N-terminal part of Med21 functions as a molecular switchboard where competing signals from various activators, repressors and mediator subunits are integrated prior to reaching the general transcription machinery. In our second study, we extended our studies of protein-protein interactions to another part of the mediator complex by studying the folding and the assembly processes of the mediator head domain subunits Med8, Med18 and Med20. Using purified proteins and a combination of several different methods such as immunoprecipitation, far-UV circular dichroism and fluorescence, we demonstrated that the Med8, Med18 and Med20 subunits are interdependent on each other for proper folding and complex formation. Section "Acknowledgments" removed due to copyright – see printed version.