Project description:Plasticity of neoplasia, whereby cancer cells attain stem-cell-like properties, is required for disease progression and represents a major therapeutic challenge. Hypoxia induces breast cancer cell plasticity and stem-cell-like phenotypes. Although this process is poorly understood, reports demonstrate that hypoxia induces the expression of stemness-factors including NANOG, SNAIL and NODAL. Moreover, both stem-cell-like phenotypes and elevated expression of stemness-factors have been linked to metastatic spread and chemoresistance. With the use of high through-put sequencing, we characterized the gene expression profiles of T47D breast cancer cells under normoxic and hypoxic conditions.
Project description:Plasticity of neoplasia, whereby cancer cells attain stem-cell-like properties, is required for disease progression and represents a major therapeutic challenge. We report that in breast cancer cells NANOG, SNAIL and NODAL transcripts manifest multiple isoforms characterized by different 5' Untranslated Regions (5'UTRs), whereby translation of a subset of these isoforms is stimulated under hypoxia. The accumulation of the corresponding proteins induces plasticity and "fate-switching" toward stem cell-like phenotypes. Mechanistically, we observe that mTOR inhibitors and chemotherapeutics induce translational activation of a subset of NANOG, SNAIL and NODAL mRNA isoforms akin to hypoxia, engendering stem-cell-like phenotypes. These effects are overcome with drugs that antagonize translational reprogramming caused by eIF2? phosphorylation (e.g. ISRIB), suggesting that the Integrated Stress Response drives breast cancer plasticity. Collectively, our findings reveal a mechanism of induction of plasticity of breast cancer cells and provide a molecular basis for therapeutic strategies aimed at overcoming drug resistance and abrogating metastasis.
Project description:Epigenetic deregulation of gene transcription is central to cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression, but remains poorly understood. We found that the uncharacterized epigenetic factor Chromodomain on Y-like 2 (CDYL2) is commonly over-expressed in breast cancer, and that high CDYL2 levels correlate with poor prognosis. Supporting a functional role for CDYL2 in malignancy, it positively regulated breast cancer cell migration, invasion, stem-like phenotypes, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). CDYL2 regulation of these plasticity-associated processes depended on signaling via p65/NF-kB and STAT3. This, in turn, was downstream of CDYL2 regulation of MIR124 gene transcription. CDYL2 co-immunoprecipitated with G9a/EHMT2 and GLP/EHMT1, and regulated the chromatin enrichment of G9a and EZH2 at MIR124 genes. We propose that CDYL2 contributes to poor prognosis in breast cancer by recruiting G9a and EZH2 to epigenetically repress MIR124 genes, thereby promoting NF-kB and STAT3 signaling, as well as downstream cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression.
Project description:Epigenetic deregulation of gene transcription is central to cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression, but remains poorly understood. We found that the uncharacterized epigenetic factor Chromodomain on Y-like 2 (CDYL2) is commonly over-expressed in breast cancer, and that high CDYL2 levels correlate with poor prognosis. Supporting a functional role for CDYL2 in malignancy, it positively regulated breast cancer cell migration, invasion, stem-like phenotypes, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). CDYL2 regulation of these plasticity-associated processes depended on signaling via p65/NF-kB and STAT3. This, in turn, was downstream of CDYL2 regulation of MIR124 gene transcription. CDYL2 co-immunoprecipitated with G9a/EHMT2 and GLP/EHMT1, and regulated the chromatin enrichment of G9a and EZH2 at MIR124 genes. We propose that CDYL2 contributes to poor prognosis in breast cancer by recruiting G9a and EZH2 to epigenetically repress MIR124 genes, thereby promoting NF-kB and STAT3 signaling, as well as downstream cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression.
Project description:Phenotypic plasticity has emerged as an important mechanism of therapy resistance in cancers, yet the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Using an established breast cancer cellular model for endocrine resistance, we show that hormone resistance is associated with enhanced phenotypic plasticity, indicated by a general downregulation of luminal/epithelial differentiation markers and upregulation of basal/mesenchymal invasive markers. Our extensive omics studies, including GRO-seq on enhancer landscapes, demonstrate that the global enhancer gain/loss reprogramming driven by the differential interactions between ER-alpha and other oncogenic transcription factors (TFs), predominantly GATA3 and AP1, profoundly alters breast cancer transcriptional programs. Our functional studies in multiple biological systems support a coordinate role of GATA3 and AP1 in enhancer reprogramming that drives phenotypic plasticity to achieve endocrine resistance or cancer invasive progression. Thus, changes in TF-TF and TF-enhancer interactions can lead to genome-wide enhancer reprogramming, resulting in transcriptional dysregulations that promote plasticity and cancer therapy-resistance progression
Project description:Epigenetic deregulation of gene transcription is central to cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression, but remains poorly understood. We found that the uncharacterized epigenetic factor Chromodomain on Y-like 2 (CDYL2) is commonly over-expressed in breast cancer, and that high CDYL2 levels correlate with poor prognosis. Supporting a functional role for CDYL2 in malignancy, it positively regulated breast cancer cell migration, invasion, stem-like phenotypes, and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT). CDYL2 regulation of these plasticity-associated processes depended on signaling via p65/NF-kB and STAT3. This, in turn, was downstream of CDYL2 regulation of MIR124 gene transcription. CDYL2 co-immunoprecipitated with G9a/EHMT2 and GLP/EHMT1, and regulated the chromatin enrichment of G9a and EZH2 at MIR124 genes. We propose that CDYL2 contributes to poor prognosis in breast cancer by recruiting G9a and EZH2 to epigenetically repress MIR124 genes, thereby promoting NF-kB and STAT3 signaling, as well as downstream cancer cell plasticity and malignant progression.
Project description:Female breast cancer patients who underwent surgery for breast cancer as part of the Danish Center for Translational Breast Cancer Research program were included from 2003 to 2012. Patient inclusion criteria were: (1) a unifocal tumor with an estimated size of more than 20 mm in diameter, (2) none of the patients had a history of breast surgery and (3) none received preoperative treatment. Patients were defined as high risk according to the Danish Breast Cooperative Group (www.dbcg.dk) and were followed after surgery.