Isolation of transcriptionally active chromatin from human breast cancer cells using Sulfolink coupling gel chromatography

Pre-mRNA splicing: role of epigenetics and implications in disease

Epigenetics refer to a variety of processes that have long-term effects on gene expression programs without changes in DNA sequence. Key players in epigenetic control are histone modifications and DNA methylation which, in concert with chromatin remodeling complexes, nuclear architecture and microRNAs, define the chromatin structure of a gene and its transcriptional activity. There is a growing awareness that histone modifications and chromatin organization influence pre-mRNA splicing. Further there is emerging evidence that pre-mRNA splicing itself influences chromatin organization. In the mammalian genome around 95% of multi-exon genes generate alternatively spliced transcripts, the products of which create proteins with different functions. It is now established that several human diseases are a direct consequence of aberrant splicing events. In this review we present the interplay between epigenetic mechanisms and splicing regulation, as well as discuss recent studies on the role of histone deacetylases in splicing activities.

Novel Pathways Associated with Quinone-Induced Stress in Breast Cancer Cells

Hormone-dependent breast cancers that overexpress the ligand-binding nuclear transcription factor, estrogen receptor (ER), represent the most common form of breast epithelial malignancy. Exposure of breast epithelial cells to a redox-cycling and arylating quinone induces mitogen-activated protein kinase phosphorylation of the cytoskeletal filament protein, cytokeratin-8, along with thiol arylation of H3 nuclear histones. Exogenous or endogenous quinones can also induce ligand-independent nuclear translocation and phosphorylation of ER; with excess exposure, these quinones can arylate ER zinc fingers, impairing ER DNA-binding and altering ER-inducible gene expression. Immunoaffinity enrichment for low abundance proteins such as ER, coupled with modern mass spectrometry techniques, promises to improve understanding of the protein-modifications produced by endogenous and exogenous quinone exposure and their role in the development or progression of epithelial malignancies such as breast cancer.

Vitamin K3 (Menadione)-Induced Oncosis Associated with Keratin 8 Phosphorylation and Histone H3 Arylation

The vitamin K analog menadione (K3), capable of both redox cycling and arylating nucleophilic substrates by Michael addition, has been extensively studied as a model stress-inducing quinone in both cell culture and animal model systems. Exposure of keratin 8 (k-8) expressing human breast cancer cells (MCF7, T47D, SKBr3) to K3 (50-100 microM) induced rapid, sustained, and site-specific k-8 serine phosphorylation (pSer73) dependent on signaling by a single mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, MEK1/2. Normal nuclear morphology and k-8 immunofluorescence coupled with the lack of DNA laddering or other features of apoptosis indicated that K3-induced cytotoxicity, evident within 4 h of treatment and delayed but not prevented by MEK1/2 inhibition, was due to a form of stress-activated cell death known as oncosis. Independent of MAPK signaling was the progressive appearance of K3-induced cellular fluorescence, principally nuclear in origin and suggested by in vitro fluorimetry to have been caused by K3 thiol arylation. Imaging by UV transillumination of protein gels containing nuclear extracts from K3-treated cells revealed a prominent 17-kDa band shown to be histone H3 by immunoblotting and mass spectrometry (MS). K3 arylation of histones in vitro followed by electrospray ionization-tandem MS analyses identified the unique Cys110 residue within H3, exposed only in the open chromatin of transcriptionally active genes, as a K3 arylation target. These findings delineate new pathways associated with K3-induced stress and suggest a potentially novel role for H3 Cys110 as a nuclear stress sensor.