An achaete-scute homologue essential for neuroendocrine differentiation in the lung

In Drosophila and in vertebrates, the achaete-scute family of basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors plays a critical developmental role in neuronal commitment and differentiation(1-6). Relatively little is known, however about the transcriptional control of neural features in cells outside a neuronal context. A minority of normal bronchial epithelial cells and many Lung cancers, especially small-cell lung cancer, exhibit a neuroendocrine phenotype that may reflect a common precursor cell population(7-11). We show here that human achaete-scute homologue-1 (hASW1) is selectively expressed in normal fetal pulmonary neuroendocrine cells, as well as in the diverse range of lung cancers with neuroendocfine features. Strikingly, newborn mice bearing a disruption of the ASR1 gene have no detectable pulmonary neuroendocrine cells. Depletion of this transcription factor from lung cancer cells by antisense oligonucleotides results in a significant decrease in the expression of neuroendrocrine markers. Thus, a homologue of Drosophila neural fate determination genes seems to be necessary for progression of lung epithelial cells through a neuroendocrine differentiation pathway that is a feature of small-cell lung cancer, the most. lethal form of human lung cancer.