MYC dosage compensation is mediated by miRNA-transcription factor interactions in aneuploid cancer

SummaryWe hypothesize that dosage compensation of critical genes arises from systems-level properties for cancer cells to withstand the negative effects of aneuploidy. We identified several candidate genes in cancer multi-omics data and developed a biocomputational platform to construct a mathematical model of their interaction network with miRNAs and transcription factors, where the property of dosage compensation emerged for MYC and was dependent on the kinetic parameters of its feedback interactions with three micro-RNAs. These circuits were experimentally validated with a novel genetic tug-of-war technique by overexpressing an exogenous MYC leading to over-expression of the three microR…