Project description:Chromatin profiling of chordoma collected by the Broad chordoma target discovery project paired end ATAC-Seq profiling in the UCH2 and MUGCHOR chordoma cell lines
Project description:The prognostic factors of skull base chordoma associated with outcomes of patients after surgical resection remain poorly defined. This project aimed to identify a novel prognostic factor for patients with skull base chordoma. Using a proteomics approach, we screened tumor biomarkersthat upregulated in the rapid-recurrence group of chordoma, narrowed down by bioinformatics analysis, and finally potential biomarker was chosen for validation by immunohistochemistry using tissue microarray.
Project description:Chordoma is a primary bone cancer with no approved therapy. The identification of therapeutic targets in this disease has been challenging due to the infrequent occurrence of clinically actionable somatic mutations in chordoma tumors. Here we describe the discovery of therapeutically targetable chordoma dependencies via genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening and focused small-molecule sensitivity profiling. These systematic approaches reveal that the developmental transcription factor T (brachyury; TBXT) is the top selectively essential gene in chordoma, and that transcriptional cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors targeting CDK7/12/13 and CDK9 potently suppress chordoma cell proliferation. In other cancer types, transcriptional CDK inhibitors have been observed to downregulate highly expressed, enhancer-associated oncogenic transcription factors (TFs). In chordoma, we find that T is associated with a 1.5-Mb region containing “super-enhancers” and is the most highly expressed super-enhancer-associated TF. Strikingly, transcriptional CDK inhibition leads to preferential and concentration-dependent downregulation of cellular brachyury protein levels in all models tested. Together, these data demonstrate small-molecule targeting of brachyury TF addiction in chordoma, identify a mechanism of T gene regulation that underlies this therapeutic strategy and provide a blueprint for applying systematic genetic and chemical screening approaches to discover vulnerabilities in genomically quiet cancers.
Project description:Chordoma is a primary bone cancer with no approved therapy. The identification of therapeutic targets in this disease has been challenging due to the infrequent occurrence of clinically actionable somatic mutations in chordoma tumors. Here we describe the discovery of therapeutically targetable chordoma dependencies via genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening and focused small-molecule sensitivity profiling. These systematic approaches reveal that the developmental transcription factor T (brachyury; TBXT) is the top selectively essential gene in chordoma, and that transcriptional cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors targeting CDK7/12/13 and CDK9 potently suppress chordoma cell proliferation. In other cancer types, transcriptional CDK inhibitors have been observed to downregulate highly expressed, enhancer-associated oncogenic transcription factors (TFs). In chordoma, we find that T is associated with a 1.5-Mb region containing “super-enhancers” and is the most highly expressed super-enhancer-associated TF. Strikingly, transcriptional CDK inhibition leads to preferential and concentration-dependent downregulation of cellular brachyury protein levels in all models tested. Together, these data demonstrate small-molecule targeting of brachyury TF addiction in chordoma, identify a mechanism of T gene regulation that underlies this therapeutic strategy and provide a blueprint for applying systematic genetic and chemical screening approaches to discover vulnerabilities in genomically quiet cancers.
Project description:Chordoma is a primary bone cancer with no approved therapy. The identification of therapeutic targets in this disease has been challenging due to the infrequent occurrence of clinically actionable somatic mutations in chordoma tumors. Here we describe the discovery of therapeutically targetable chordoma dependencies via genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening and focused small-molecule sensitivity profiling. These systematic approaches reveal that the developmental transcription factor T (brachyury; TBXT) is the top selectively essential gene in chordoma, and that transcriptional cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors targeting CDK7/12/13 and CDK9 potently suppress chordoma cell proliferation. In other cancer types, transcriptional CDK inhibitors have been observed to downregulate highly expressed, enhancer-associated oncogenic transcription factors (TFs). In chordoma, we find that T is associated with a 1.5-Mb region containing “super-enhancers” and is the most highly expressed super-enhancer-associated TF. Strikingly, transcriptional CDK inhibition leads to preferential and concentration-dependent downregulation of cellular brachyury protein levels in all models tested. Together, these data demonstrate small-molecule targeting of brachyury TF addiction in chordoma, identify a mechanism of T gene regulation that underlies this therapeutic strategy and provide a blueprint for applying systematic genetic and chemical screening approaches to discover vulnerabilities in genomically quiet cancers.
Project description:Chordoma is a rare malignant tumor thought to originate from embryonic notochord. However, no molecular comparison of chordoma and notochord has been performed to date, leaving the identities of dysregulated pathways unclear. Absence of a molecular description of a control tissue clouds our understanding of chordoma. Thus, we conducted an unbiased comparison of chordoma and notochord using gene expression profiling to clarify chordoma’s tissue of origin and identify novel drug targets
Project description:This is a continuation of the Chordoma Sequencing Project. All cancers arise due to somatically acquired abnormalities in DNA sequence. Systematic sequencing of cancer genomes allows acquisition of complete catalogues of all classes of somatic mutation present in cancer. These mutation catalogues will allow identification of the somatically mutated cancer genes that are operative and characterise patterns of somatic mutation that may reflect previous exogenous and endogenous mutagenic exposures. In this application, we aim to perform whole genome sequencing on 10 chordoma matched genome pairs. RNA Sequencing/Methylation and SNP6 and an additional sequencing of three cancer cell lines will be added to this work.
Project description:Chordoma is a primary bone cancer with no approved therapy. The identification of therapeutic targets in this disease has been challenging due to the infrequent occurrence of clinically actionable somatic mutations in chordoma tumors. Here we describe the discovery of therapeutically targetable chordoma dependencies via genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening and focused small-molecule sensitivity profiling. These systematic approaches reveal that the developmental transcription factor T (brachyury; TBXT) is the top selectively essential gene in chordoma, and that transcriptional cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors targeting CDK7/12/13 and CDK9 potently suppress chordoma cell proliferation. In other cancer types, transcriptional CDK inhibitors have been observed to downregulate highly expressed, enhancer-associated oncogenic transcription factors (TFs). In chordoma, we find that T is associated with a 1.5-Mb region containing “super-enhancers” and is the most highly expressed super-enhancer-associated TF. Strikingly, transcriptional CDK inhibition leads to preferential and concentration-dependent downregulation of cellular brachyury protein levels in all models tested. Together, these data demonstrate small-molecule targeting of brachyury TF addiction in chordoma, identify a mechanism of T gene regulation that underlies this therapeutic strategy and provide a blueprint for applying systematic genetic and chemical screening approaches to discover vulnerabilities in genomically quiet cancers.
Project description:Chordoma is a rare malignant tumor thought to originate from embryonic notochord. However, no molecular comparison of chordoma and notochord has been performed to date, leaving the identities of dysregulated pathways unclear. Absence of a molecular description of a control tissue clouds our understanding of chordoma. Thus, we conducted an unbiased comparison of chordoma and notochord using gene expression profiling to clarify chordoma’s tissue of origin and identify novel drug targets
Project description:ChIP sequencing of chordoma UCH-1 cell line. A well characterised chordoma cell line which bears all the morphological and immunohistochemical features of a chordoma (large vacuolated slow-growing cells, brachyury and cytokeratin-positive) have been used in this study. Chromatin immunoprecipitation using a well characterised anti-Brachyury antibody which has been used in immunohistochemistry of chordoma samples and previous ChIP studies in other systems. This data is part of a pre-publication release. For information on the proper use of pre-publication data shared by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (including details of any publication moratoria), please see http://www.sanger.ac.uk/datasharing/