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BET bromodomain dependency in EWS/ETS driven Ewing Sarcoma

ABSTRACT: The pathognomonic EWS/ETS fusion transcription factors drive Ewing sarcoma (EWS) by orchestrating an oncogenic transcription program. Therapeutic targeting of EWS/ETS has not been successful; therefore identifying mediators of the EWS/ETS function could offer new therapeutic targets. Here we describe the dependency of chromatin reader BET bromodomain proteins in EWS/ETS driven transcription and investigate the potential of BET inhibitors in treating this lethal cancer. Similar to EWS/ETS fusions, knockdown of BET proteins BRD2/3/4 severely impaired the oncogenic phenotype of EWS cells. Notably, EWS/FLI1 and EWS/ERG was found to be in a transcriptional complex consisting of BRD4. RNA-Seq analysis upon BRD4 knockdown or its pharmacologic inhibition by the BET inhibitor JQ1 revealed an attenuated EWS/ETS transcriptional signature. In contrast to other reports, JQ1 reduced proliferation, and induced apoptosis through MYC-independent mechanism without affecting EWS/ETS protein levels, which was further confirmed by depleting BET proteins using PROTAC-BET degrader (BETd). Interestingly, polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) associated factor PHF19 was downregulated by JQ1/BETd or BRD4 knockdown in multiple EWS cells. ChIP-seq analysis revealed occupancy of EWS/FLI1 at a distal regulatory element of PHF19 and its subsequent knockdown resulted in downregulation of PHF19 expression. Furthermore, deletion of PHF19 by CRISPR-Cas9 system lead to a decreased tumorigenic phenotype and increased sensitivity to JQ1. Importantly, PHF19 expression was associated with worse prognosis of Ewing sarcoma patients. In vivo, JQ1 demonstrated anti-tumor efficacy in multiple mouse xenograft models of EWS. Together, these results indicate that EWS/ETS require BET epigenetic reader proteins for its transcriptional program including PHF19 expression, which can be mitigated by BET inhibitors. Moreover, this study provides a clear rationale for the clinical utility of BET inhibitors in treating Ewing sarcoma.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE113604 | GEO | 2018/06/19

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Ewing sarcoma is a highly aggressive tumor characterized by a translocation between members of the FET family of RNA binding proteins and one of several ETS transcription factors, with the most common translocation being EWS-FLI1. EWS-FLI1 leads to changes in gene expression through mechanisms that are not completely understood. We performed RNA sequencing analysis on primary pediatric human mesenchymal progenitor cells (pMPCs) expressing EWS-FLI1 in order to identify novel target genes. This analysis identified lnc277 as a previously uncharacterized long non-coding RNA upregulated by EWS-FLI1 in pMPCs. Inhibiting the expression of lnc277 diminished the ability of Ewing sarcoma cell lines to proliferate and form colonies in soft agar whereas inhibiting lnc277 had no effect on other cell types tested. By analyzing gene expression after shRNA knockdown, we found that both EWS-FLI1 and lnc277 repressed many more genes that they induced and that a significant fraction of EWS-FLI1 repressed targets were also repressed by lnc277. Analysis of primary human Ewing sarcoma RNA sequencing data further supports a role for lnc277 in mediating gene repression. We identified hnRNPK as an RNA binding protein that interacts directly with lnc277. We found a significant overlap in the genes repressed by hnRNPK and those repressed by both EWS-FLI1 and lnc277, suggesting that hnRNPK participates in lnc277 mediated gene repression. Thus, lnc277 is a previously uncharacterized long non-coding RNA downstream of EWS-FLI1 that facilitates the development of Ewing sarcoma via the repression of target genes. Our studies identify a novel mechanism of oncogenesis downstream of a chromosomal translocation and underscore the importance of lncRNA-mediated gene repression as a mechanism of EWS-FLI1 transcriptional regulation. RNA from primary human bone marrow derived mesenchymal cells either control or with inducible expression of EWS-FLI1 for 13 days was used to prepare PolyA selected cDNA libraries.

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BET bromodomain dependency in EWS/ETS driven Ewing Sarcoma

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