1
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Cheong JG, Ravishankar A, Sharma S, Parkhurst CN, Grassmann SA, Wingert CK, Laurent P, Ma S, Paddock L, Miranda IC, Karakaslar EO, Nehar-Belaid D, Thibodeau A, Bale MJ, Kartha VK, Yee JK, Mays MY, Jiang C, Daman AW, Martinez de Paz A, Ahimovic D, Ramos V, Lercher A, Nielsen E, Alvarez-Mulett S, Zheng L, Earl A, Yallowitz A, Robbins L, LaFond E, Weidman KL, Racine-Brzostek S, Yang HS, Price DR, Leyre L, Rendeiro AF, Ravichandran H, Kim J, Borczuk AC, Rice CM, Jones RB, Schenck EJ, Kaner RJ, Chadburn A, Zhao Z, Pascual V, Elemento O, Schwartz RE, Buenrostro JD, Niec RE, Barrat FJ, Lief L, Sun JC, Ucar D, Josefowicz SZ. Epigenetic memory of coronavirus infection in innate immune cells and their progenitors. Cell 2023; 186:3882-3902.e24. [PMID: 37597510 PMCID: PMC10638861 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.07.019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 24.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2022] [Revised: 04/20/2023] [Accepted: 07/12/2023] [Indexed: 08/21/2023]
Abstract
Inflammation can trigger lasting phenotypes in immune and non-immune cells. Whether and how human infections and associated inflammation can form innate immune memory in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) has remained unclear. We found that circulating HSPC, enriched from peripheral blood, captured the diversity of bone marrow HSPC, enabling investigation of their epigenomic reprogramming following coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Alterations in innate immune phenotypes and epigenetic programs of HSPC persisted for months to 1 year following severe COVID-19 and were associated with distinct transcription factor (TF) activities, altered regulation of inflammatory programs, and durable increases in myelopoiesis. HSPC epigenomic alterations were conveyed, through differentiation, to progeny innate immune cells. Early activity of IL-6 contributed to these persistent phenotypes in human COVID-19 and a mouse coronavirus infection model. Epigenetic reprogramming of HSPC may underlie altered immune function following infection and be broadly relevant, especially for millions of COVID-19 survivors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jin-Gyu Cheong
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Arjun Ravishankar
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Siddhartha Sharma
- The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06032, USA
| | | | - Simon A Grassmann
- Immunology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Claire K Wingert
- Immunology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Paoline Laurent
- HSS Research Institute, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY 10021, USA
| | - Sai Ma
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Lucinda Paddock
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | | | - Emin Onur Karakaslar
- The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06032, USA; Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden, The Netherlands
| | | | - Asa Thibodeau
- The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06032, USA
| | - Michael J Bale
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Jim K Yee
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Minh Y Mays
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Chenyang Jiang
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Andrew W Daman
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Alexia Martinez de Paz
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Dughan Ahimovic
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Victor Ramos
- The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | | | - Erik Nielsen
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | | | - Ling Zheng
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Andrew Earl
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Alisha Yallowitz
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Lexi Robbins
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | | | - Karissa L Weidman
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Sabrina Racine-Brzostek
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - He S Yang
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - David R Price
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Louise Leyre
- Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - André F Rendeiro
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1090 Vienna, Austria
| | - Hiranmayi Ravichandran
- Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Junbum Kim
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Alain C Borczuk
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Northwell Health, Greenvale, NY 11548, USA
| | | | - R Brad Jones
- Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Edward J Schenck
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Robert J Kaner
- Department of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Amy Chadburn
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Zhen Zhao
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Virginia Pascual
- Department of Pediatrics, Gale and Ira Drukier Institute for Children's Health, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Olivier Elemento
- Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Caryl and Israel Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Robert E Schwartz
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Jason D Buenrostro
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Rachel E Niec
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; The Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Franck J Barrat
- Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; HSS Research Institute, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY 10021, USA; Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Lindsay Lief
- Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Joseph C Sun
- Immunology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA
| | - Duygu Ucar
- The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, Farmington, CT 06032, USA; Institute for Systems Genomics, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, CT, USA.
| | - Steven Z Josefowicz
- Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA; Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA.
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Hu Y, Ma S, Kartha VK, Duarte FM, Horlbeck M, Zhang R, Shrestha R, Labade A, Kletzien H, Meliki A, Castillo A, Durand N, Mattei E, Anderson LJ, Tay T, Earl AS, Shoresh N, Epstein CB, Wagers A, Buenrostro JD. Single-cell multi-scale footprinting reveals the modular organization of DNA regulatory elements. bioRxiv 2023:2023.03.28.533945. [PMID: 37034577 PMCID: PMC10081223 DOI: 10.1101/2023.03.28.533945] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/19/2023]
Abstract
Cis-regulatory elements control gene expression and are dynamic in their structure, reflecting changes to the composition of diverse effector proteins over time1-3. Here we sought to connect the structural changes at cis-regulatory elements to alterations in cellular fate and function. To do this we developed PRINT, a computational method that uses deep learning to correct sequence bias in chromatin accessibility data and identifies multi-scale footprints of DNA-protein interactions. We find that multi-scale footprints enable more accurate inference of TF and nucleosome binding. Using PRINT with single-cell multi-omics, we discover wide-spread changes to the structure and function of candidate cis-regulatory elements (cCREs) across hematopoiesis, wherein nucleosomes slide, expose DNA for TF binding, and promote gene expression. Activity segmentation using the co-variance across cell states identifies "sub-cCREs" as modular cCRE subunits of regulatory DNA. We apply this single-cell and PRINT approach to characterize the age-associated alterations to cCREs within hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Remarkably, we find a spectrum of aging alterations among HSCs corresponding to a global gain of sub-cCRE activity while preserving cCRE accessibility. Collectively, we reveal the functional importance of cCRE structure across cell states, highlighting changes to gene regulation at single-cell and single-base-pair resolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yan Hu
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Sai Ma
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
- Current address: Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029 USA
| | - Vinay K. Kartha
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Fabiana M. Duarte
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Max Horlbeck
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Ruochi Zhang
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Rojesh Shrestha
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Ajay Labade
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Heidi Kletzien
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
- Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115
| | - Alia Meliki
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Andrew Castillo
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Neva Durand
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
| | - Eugenio Mattei
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
| | - Lauren J. Anderson
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
| | - Tristan Tay
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Andrew S. Earl
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
| | - Noam Shoresh
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
| | - Charles B. Epstein
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
| | - Amy Wagers
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
- Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115
| | - Jason D. Buenrostro
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02142 USA
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA
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3
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Kartha VK, Duarte FM, Hu Y, Ma S, Chew JG, Lareau CA, Earl A, Burkett ZD, Kohlway AS, Lebofsky R, Buenrostro JD. Functional inference of gene regulation using single-cell multi-omics. Cell Genomics 2022; 2. [PMID: 36204155 PMCID: PMC9534481 DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2022.100166] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 26.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Cells require coordinated control over gene expression when responding to environmental stimuli. Here we apply scATAC-seq and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in resting and stimulated human blood cells. Collectively, we generate ~91,000 single-cell profiles, allowing us to probe the cis-regulatory landscape of the immunological response across cell types, stimuli, and time. Advancing tools to integrate multi-omics data, we develop functional inference of gene regulation (FigR), a framework to computationally pair scA-TAC-seq with scRNA-seq cells, connect distal cis-regulatory elements to genes, and infer gene-regulatory networks (GRNs) to identify candidate transcription factor (TF) regulators. Utilizing these paired multi-omics data, we define domains of regulatory chromatin (DORCs) of immune stimulation and find that cells alter chromatin accessibility and gene expression at timescales of minutes. Construction of the stimulation GRN elucidates TF activity at disease-associated DORCs. Overall, FigR enables elucidation of regulatory interactions across single-cell data, providing new opportunities to understand the function of cells within tissues. Single-cell methods for measuring chromatin accessibility (ATAC-seq) and gene expression (RNA-seq) are rapidly evolving, but tools to integrate data and infer gene-regulatory relationships remain limited. Here we generate multi-omics data of resting and stimulated human blood cells and present a new computational framework for constructing gene-regulatory networks (GRNs). Specifically, we describe functional inference of gene regulation (FigR), a workflow to (1) pair scATAC-seq with scRNA-seq, (2) connect cis-regulatory elements to target genes, and (3) identify TF-gene relationships.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vinay K. Kartha
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Fabiana M. Duarte
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Yan Hu
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Sai Ma
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | | | - Caleb A. Lareau
- Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Andrew Earl
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | | | | | | | - Jason D. Buenrostro
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gene Regulation Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
- Corresponding author
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4
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Concepcion CP, Ma S, LaFave LM, Bhutkar A, Liu M, DeAngelo LP, Kim JY, Del Priore I, Schoenfeld AJ, Miller M, Kartha VK, Westcott PMK, Sanchez-Rivera FJ, Meli K, Gupta M, Bronson RT, Riely GJ, Rekhtman N, Rudin CM, Kim CF, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Jacks T. SMARCA4 inactivation promotes lineage-specific transformation and early metastatic features in the lung. Cancer Discov 2021; 12:562-585. [PMID: 34561242 DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.cd-21-0248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2021] [Revised: 07/30/2021] [Accepted: 09/21/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
SMARCA4/BRG1 encodes for one of two mutually exclusive ATPases present in mammalian SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complexes and is frequently mutated in human lung adenocarcinoma. However, the functional consequences of SMARCA4 mutation on tumor initiation, progression, and chromatin regulation in lung cancer remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that loss of Smarca4 sensitizes CCSP+ cells within the lung in a cell-type dependent fashion to malignant transformation and tumor progression, resulting in highly advanced dedifferentiated tumors and increased metastatic incidence. Consistent with these phenotypes, Smarca4-deficient primary tumors lack lung lineage transcription factor activities and resemble a metastatic cell state. Mechanistically, we show that Smarca4 loss impairs the function of all three classes of SWI/SNF complexes, resulting in decreased chromatin accessibility at lung lineage motifs and ultimately accelerating tumor progression. Thus, we propose that the SWI/SNF complex - via Smarca4 - acts as a gatekeeper for lineage-specific cellular transformation and metastasis during lung cancer evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carla P Concepcion
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Lindsay M LaFave
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Arjun Bhutkar
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Manyuan Liu
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | - Lydia P DeAngelo
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Isabella Del Priore
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Manon Miller
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Peter M K Westcott
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | - Kevin Meli
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
| | | | | | | | | | - Charles M Rudin
- Druckenmiller Center for Lung Cancer Research and Department of Medicine, Thoracic Oncology Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
| | - Carla F Kim
- Stem Cell Program, Harvard University, Boston Children's Hospital
| | | | | | - Tyler Jacks
- Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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5
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Ma S, Zhang B, LaFave LM, Earl AS, Chiang Z, Hu Y, Ding J, Brack A, Kartha VK, Tay T, Law T, Lareau C, Hsu YC, Regev A, Buenrostro JD. Chromatin Potential Identified by Shared Single-Cell Profiling of RNA and Chromatin. Cell 2020; 183:1103-1116.e20. [PMID: 33098772 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.09.056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 404] [Impact Index Per Article: 101.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/19/2020] [Revised: 07/22/2020] [Accepted: 09/21/2020] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
Cell differentiation and function are regulated across multiple layers of gene regulation, including modulation of gene expression by changes in chromatin accessibility. However, differentiation is an asynchronous process precluding a temporal understanding of regulatory events leading to cell fate commitment. Here we developed simultaneous high-throughput ATAC and RNA expression with sequencing (SHARE-seq), a highly scalable approach for measurement of chromatin accessibility and gene expression in the same single cell, applicable to different tissues. Using 34,774 joint profiles from mouse skin, we develop a computational strategy to identify cis-regulatory interactions and define domains of regulatory chromatin (DORCs) that significantly overlap with super-enhancers. During lineage commitment, chromatin accessibility at DORCs precedes gene expression, suggesting that changes in chromatin accessibility may prime cells for lineage commitment. We computationally infer chromatin potential as a quantitative measure of chromatin lineage-priming and use it to predict cell fate outcomes. SHARE-seq is an extensible platform to study regulatory circuitry across diverse cells in tissues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sai Ma
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology and Koch Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Bing Zhang
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Lindsay M LaFave
- Department of Biology and Koch Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Andrew S Earl
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Zachary Chiang
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Yan Hu
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Jiarui Ding
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Alison Brack
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Tristan Tay
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Travis Law
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Caleb Lareau
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Ya-Chieh Hsu
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Aviv Regev
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology and Koch Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA.
| | - Jason D Buenrostro
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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6
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LaFave LM, Kartha VK, Ma S, Meli K, Del Priore I, Lareau C, Naranjo S, Westcott PMK, Duarte FM, Sankar V, Chiang Z, Brack A, Law T, Hauck H, Okimoto A, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Jacks T. Epigenomic State Transitions Characterize Tumor Progression in Mouse Lung Adenocarcinoma. Cancer Cell 2020; 38:212-228.e13. [PMID: 32707078 PMCID: PMC7641015 DOI: 10.1016/j.ccell.2020.06.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 112] [Impact Index Per Article: 28.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2019] [Revised: 02/20/2020] [Accepted: 06/12/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Regulatory networks that maintain functional, differentiated cell states are often dysregulated in tumor development. Here, we use single-cell epigenomics to profile chromatin state transitions in a mouse model of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). We identify an epigenomic continuum representing loss of cellular identity and progression toward a metastatic state. We define co-accessible regulatory programs and infer key activating and repressive chromatin regulators of these cell states. Among these co-accessibility programs, we identify a pre-metastatic transition, characterized by activation of RUNX transcription factors, which mediates extracellular matrix remodeling to promote metastasis and is predictive of survival across human LUAD patients. Together, these results demonstrate the power of single-cell epigenomics to identify regulatory programs to uncover mechanisms and key biomarkers of tumor progression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lindsay M LaFave
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Sai Ma
- Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Kevin Meli
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Isabella Del Priore
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Caleb Lareau
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Santiago Naranjo
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Peter M K Westcott
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Fabiana M Duarte
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Venkat Sankar
- Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Zachary Chiang
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Alison Brack
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Travis Law
- Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Haley Hauck
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Annalisa Okimoto
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Aviv Regev
- Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Klarman Cell Observatory, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA
| | - Jason D Buenrostro
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
| | - Tyler Jacks
- David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
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7
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Chandler KB, Alamoud KA, Stahl VL, Nguyen BC, Kartha VK, Bais MV, Nomoto K, Owa T, Monti S, Kukuruzinska MA, Costello CE. β-Catenin/CBP inhibition alters epidermal growth factor receptor fucosylation status in oral squamous cell carcinoma. Mol Omics 2020; 16:195-209. [PMID: 32203567 PMCID: PMC7299767 DOI: 10.1039/d0mo00009d] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a major driver of head and neck cancer, a devastating malignancy with a major sub-site in the oral cavity manifesting as oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). EGFR is a glycoprotein receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) whose activity is upregulated in >80% OSCC. Current anti-EGFR therapy relies on the use of cetuximab, a monoclonal antibody against EGFR, although it has had only a limited response in patients. Here, we uncover a novel mechanism regulating EGFR activity, identifying a role of the nuclear branch of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, the β-catenin/CBP axis, in control of post-translational modification of N-glycans on the EGFR. Genomic and structural analyses reveal that β-catenin/CBP signaling represses fucosylation on the antennae of N-linked glycans on EGFR. By employing nUPLC-MS/MS, we determined that malignant human OSCC cells harbor EGFR with a paucity of N-glycan antennary fucosylation, while indolent cells display higher levels of fucosylation at sites N420 and N579. Additionally, treatment with either ICG-001 or E7386, which are both small molecule inhibitors of β-catenin/CBP signaling, leads to increased transcriptional expression of fucosyltransferases FUT2 and FUT3, with a concomitant increase in EGFR N-glycan antennary fucosylation. In order to discover which fucosylated glycan epitopes are involved in the observed effect, we performed in-depth characterization of multiply-fucosylated N-glycans via tandem mass spectrometry analysis of the EGFR tryptic glycopeptides. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD017060. We propose that β-catenin/CBP signaling promotes EGFR oncogenic activity in OSCC by inhibiting its N-glycan antennary fucosylation through transcriptional repression of FUT2 and FUT3.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin Brown Chandler
- Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry, Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Khalid A. Alamoud
- Department of Translational Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Vanessa L Stahl
- Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry, Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Bach-Cuc Nguyen
- Department of Translational Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Vinay K. Kartha
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Manish V. Bais
- Department of Translational Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | | | | | - Stefano Monti
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Maria A. Kukuruzinska
- Department of Translational Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
| | - Catherine E. Costello
- Center for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry, Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, 02118 USA
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8
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Ulirsch JC, Lareau CA, Bao EL, Ludwig LS, Guo MH, Benner C, Satpathy AT, Kartha VK, Salem RM, Hirschhorn JN, Finucane HK, Aryee MJ, Buenrostro JD, Sankaran VG. Interrogation of human hematopoiesis at single-cell and single-variant resolution. Nat Genet 2019; 51:683-693. [PMID: 30858613 PMCID: PMC6441389 DOI: 10.1038/s41588-019-0362-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 105] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2018] [Accepted: 01/28/2019] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Widespread linkage disequilibrium and incomplete annotation of cell-to-cell state variation represent substantial challenges to elucidating mechanisms of trait-associated genetic variation. Here, we perform genetic fine-mapping for blood cell traits in the UK Biobank to identify putative causal variants. These variants are enriched in genes encoding for proteins in trait-relevant biological pathways and in accessible chromatin of hematopoietic progenitors. For regulatory variants, we explore patterns of developmental enhancer activity, predict molecular mechanisms, and identify likely target genes. In several instances, we localize multiple independent variants to the same regulatory element or gene. We further observe that variants with pleiotropic effects preferentially act in common progenitor populations to direct the production of distinct lineages. Finally, we leverage fine-mapped variants in conjunction with continuous epigenomic annotations to identify trait-cell type enrichments within closely related populations and in single cells. Our study provides a comprehensive framework for single-variant and single-cell analyses of genetic associations. Fine mapping of blood cell traits in UK Biobank identifies putative causal variants and enrichment of fine-mapped variants in accessible chromatin of hematopoietic progenitor cells. The study provides an analytical framework for single-variant and single-cell analyses of genetic associations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob C Ulirsch
- Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Caleb A Lareau
- Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Erik L Bao
- Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Leif S Ludwig
- Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Michael H Guo
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Division of Endocrinology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Christian Benner
- Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.,Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
| | - Ansuman T Satpathy
- Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Rany M Salem
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Division of Endocrinology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Joel N Hirschhorn
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Division of Endocrinology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.,Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Hilary K Finucane
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Schmidt Fellows Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Martin J Aryee
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.,Department of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.,Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jason D Buenrostro
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. .,Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
| | - Vijay G Sankaran
- Division of Hematology/Oncology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. .,Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. .,Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA. .,Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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9
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Kartha VK, Sebastiani P, Kern JG, Zhang L, Varelas X, Monti S. CaDrA: A Computational Framework for Performing Candidate Driver Analyses Using Genomic Features. Front Genet 2019; 10:121. [PMID: 30838036 PMCID: PMC6390206 DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2019.00121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/07/2018] [Accepted: 02/04/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The identification of genetic alteration combinations as drivers of a given phenotypic outcome, such as drug sensitivity, gene or protein expression, and pathway activity, is a challenging task that is essential to gaining new biological insights and to discovering therapeutic targets. Existing methods designed to predict complementary drivers of such outcomes lack analytical flexibility, including the support for joint analyses of multiple genomic alteration types, such as somatic mutations and copy number alterations, multiple scoring functions, and rigorous significance and reproducibility testing procedures. To address these limitations, we developed Candidate Driver Analysis or CaDrA, an integrative framework that implements a step-wise heuristic search approach to identify functionally relevant subsets of genomic features that, together, are maximally associated with a specific outcome of interest. We show CaDrA's overall high sensitivity and specificity for typically sized multi-omic datasets using simulated data, and demonstrate CaDrA's ability to identify known mutations linked with sensitivity of cancer cells to drug treatment using data from the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE). We further apply CaDrA to identify novel regulators of oncogenic activity mediated by Hippo signaling pathway effectors YAP and TAZ in primary breast cancer tumors using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which we functionally validate in vitro. Finally, we use pan-cancer TCGA protein expression data to show the high reproducibility of CaDrA's search procedure. Collectively, this work demonstrates the utility of our framework for supporting the fast querying of large, publicly available multi-omics datasets, including but not limited to TCGA and CCLE, for potential drivers of a given target profile of interest.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vinay K. Kartha
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
- Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Paola Sebastiani
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
- Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Joseph G. Kern
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Liye Zhang
- School of Life Sciences and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China
| | - Xaralabos Varelas
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Stefano Monti
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
- Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
- Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
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10
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Kartha VK, Alamoud KA, Sadykov K, Nguyen BC, Laroche F, Feng H, Lee J, Pai SI, Varelas X, Egloff AM, Snyder-Cappione JE, Belkina AC, Bais MV, Monti S, Kukuruzinska MA. Functional and genomic analyses reveal therapeutic potential of targeting β-catenin/CBP activity in head and neck cancer. Genome Med 2018; 10:54. [PMID: 30029671 PMCID: PMC6053793 DOI: 10.1186/s13073-018-0569-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2017] [Accepted: 07/11/2018] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is an aggressive malignancy characterized by tumor heterogeneity, locoregional metastases, and resistance to existing treatments. Although a number of genomic and molecular alterations associated with HNSCC have been identified, they have had limited impact on the clinical management of this disease. To date, few targeted therapies are available for HNSCC, and only a small fraction of patients have benefited from these treatments. A frequent feature of HNSCC is the inappropriate activation of β-catenin that has been implicated in cell survival and in the maintenance and expansion of stem cell-like populations, thought to be the underlying cause of tumor recurrence and resistance to treatment. However, the therapeutic value of targeting β-catenin activity in HNSCC has not been explored. METHODS We utilized a combination of computational and experimental profiling approaches to examine the effects of blocking the interaction between β-catenin and cAMP-responsive element binding (CREB)-binding protein (CBP) using the small molecule inhibitor ICG-001. We generated and annotated in vitro treatment gene expression signatures of HNSCC cells, derived from human oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs), using microarrays. We validated the anti-tumorigenic activity of ICG-001 in vivo using SCC-derived tumor xenografts in murine models, as well as embryonic zebrafish-based screens of sorted stem cell-like subpopulations. Additionally, ICG-001-inhibition signatures were overlaid with RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) for human OSCCs to evaluate its association with tumor progression and prognosis. RESULTS ICG-001 inhibited HNSCC cell proliferation and tumor growth in cellular and murine models, respectively, while promoting intercellular adhesion and loss of invasive phenotypes. Furthermore, ICG-001 preferentially targeted the ability of subpopulations of stem-like cells to establish metastatic tumors in zebrafish. Significantly, interrogation of the ICG-001 inhibition-associated gene expression signature in the TCGA OSCC human cohort indicated that the targeted β-catenin/CBP transcriptional activity tracked with tumor status, advanced tumor grade, and poor overall patient survival. CONCLUSIONS Collectively, our results identify β-catenin/CBP interaction as a novel target for anti-HNSCC therapy and provide evidence that derivatives of ICG-001 with enhanced inhibitory activity may serve as an effective strategy to interfere with aggressive features of HNSCC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vinay K Kartha
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Khalid A Alamoud
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, E4, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Khikmet Sadykov
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, E4, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Bach-Cuc Nguyen
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, E4, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Fabrice Laroche
- Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Hui Feng
- Department of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jina Lee
- Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sara I Pai
- Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Xaralabos Varelas
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ann Marie Egloff
- Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Jennifer E Snyder-Cappione
- Flow Cytometry Core Facility, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
- Department of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Anna C Belkina
- Flow Cytometry Core Facility, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Manish V Bais
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, E4, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Stefano Monti
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Maria A Kukuruzinska
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, 72 East Concord Street, E4, Boston, MA, 02118, USA.
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11
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Chandler KB, Alamoud K, Kartha VK, Sadykov K, Monti S, Kukuruzinska MA, Costello CE. Abstract 2516: Inhibition of Β-catenin/CBP signaling in oral cancer alters EGFR N-glycosylation and abundance. Cancer Res 2018. [DOI: 10.1158/1538-7445.am2018-2516] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Abstract
Head and neck cancer is a debilitating malignancy, with the majority of cases arising in the oral cavity as oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). A major driver of OSCC is the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), whose activity is aberrantly upregulated in >90% of tumors. EGFR is highly modified with N-linked glycans; fucosylation of N-linked glycans interferes with EGFR dimerization and activation. Thus, post-transcriptional changes may govern EGFR activity. In OSCC, EGFR signaling converges on Wnt/ Β-catenin activity, known to play pivotal roles in the pathobiology of this malignancy through the interaction of nuclear Β-catenin with the histone acetyltransferase CREB-binding protein (CBP). We have shown that a small-molecule inhibitor of Β-catenin-CBP interaction, ICG-001, interferes with OSCC proliferation and aggressive features in cellular, zebrafish and murine models. Also, OSCC-cell line derived mouse tumor xenografts exhibit reduced EGFR abundance, and genomic analyses show a positive correlation between ICG-001 and EGFR inhibition. Given that modification of EGFR with N-glycans impacts its cell-surface localization and signaling, we hypothesized that ICG-001 affected EGFR N-glycosylation. We immunoprecipitated EGFR from indolent CAL27 and metastatic HSC-3 cells after treatment with ICG-001 or vehicle control and determined the effect of inhibition of Β-catenin/CBP activity on its N-glycosylation status. We subjected immunoprecipitated EGFR to proteolysis, performed glycopeptide enrichment via hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC), analyzed glycopeptides with an Agilent 6550 Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (Q-TOF) MS using collision-induced dissociation, and compared site-specific glycoform patterns for the two cell types +/- ICG-001. At specific N-glycosylation sites, EGFR from indolent CAL27 cells had highly fucosylated N-glycans, while EGFR from metastatic HSC-3 cells displayed N-linked glycans with a paucity of fucose. Treatment of HSC-3 cells with ICG-001 revealed higher fucosylation at sites N151, N420, suggesting that ICG-001 promoted modification with terminal fucose, potentially inhibiting EGFR signaling. Parallel analyses of gene expression signatures in response to ICG-001 treatment in HSC-3 cells showed increased transcriptional expression of fucosyltransferases, FUT2 and FUT3 that fucosylate residues on the outer arms of N-linked glycans. Our studies suggest that the Β-catenin/CBP axis promotes EGFR signaling by inhibiting its fucosylation through downregulation of FUT2 and FUT3 expression and activity. Thus, inhibition of Β-catenin/CBP signaling with ICG-001 may serve as a therapeutic approach to downregulate EGFR protumorigenic activity in OSCC.
Supported by NIH grants P41 GM104603 (CEC), F32 CA196157 (KBC), and by the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research ARC #9950000118 (MAK).
Citation Format: Kevin B. Chandler, Khalid Alamoud, Vinay K. Kartha, Khikmet Sadykov, Stefano Monti, Maria A. Kukuruzinska, Catherine E. Costello. Inhibition of Β-catenin/CBP signaling in oral cancer alters EGFR N-glycosylation and abundance [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2516.
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12
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Alsaqer SF, Tashkandi MM, Kartha VK, Yang YT, Alkheriji Y, Salama A, Varelas X, Kukuruzinska M, Monti S, Bais MV. Inhibition of LSD1 epigenetically attenuates oral cancer growth and metastasis. Oncotarget 2017; 8:73372-73386. [PMID: 29088714 PMCID: PMC5650269 DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.19637] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2016] [Accepted: 07/14/2017] [Indexed: 01/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) is a nuclear histone demethylase and a member of the amine oxidase (AO) family. LSD1 is a flavin-containing AO that specifically catalyzes the demethylation of mono- and di-methylated histone H3 lysine 4 through an FAD-dependent oxidative reaction. LSD1 is inappropriately upregulated in lung, liver, brain and esophageal cancers, where it promotes cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis. However, unlike other lysine-specific demethylases, the role and specific targets of LSD1 in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) pathogenesis remain unknown. We show that LSD1 protein expression was increased in malignant OSCC tissues in a clinical tissue microarray, and its expression correlated with progressive tumor stages. In an orthotopic oral cancer mouse model, LSD1 overexpression in aggressive HSC-3 cells promoted metastasis whereas knockdown of LSD1 inhibited tumor spread, suggesting that LSD1 is a key regulator of OSCC metastasis. Pharmacological inhibition of LSD1 using a specific small molecule inhibitor, GSK-LSD1, down-regulated EGF signaling pathway. Further, GSK-LSD1 attenuates CTGF/CCN2, MMP13, LOXL4 and vimentin expression but increased E-cadherin expression in pre-existing, patient-derived tonsillar OSCC xenografts. Similarly, GSK-LSD1 inhibited proliferation and CTGF expression in mesenchymal cells, including myoepithelial cells and osteosarcoma cells. In addition, gene set enrichment analysis revealed that GSK-LSD1 increased p53 expression and apoptosis while inhibiting c-myc, β-catenin and YAP-induced oncogenic transcriptional networks. These data reveal that aberrant LSD1 activation regulates key OSCC microenvironment and EMT promoting factors, including CTGF, LOXL4 and MMP13.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saqer F Alsaqer
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Mustafa M Tashkandi
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.,Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ya-Ting Yang
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Yazeed Alkheriji
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Andrew Salama
- Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Xaralabos Varelas
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Maria Kukuruzinska
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Stefano Monti
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.,Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Manish V Bais
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Boston, MA, USA
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13
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Kartha VK, Stawski L, Han R, Haines P, Gallagher G, Noonan V, Kukuruzinska M, Monti S, Trojanowska M. PDGFRβ Is a Novel Marker of Stromal Activation in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinomas. PLoS One 2016; 11:e0154645. [PMID: 27128408 PMCID: PMC4851360 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0154645] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2016] [Accepted: 04/15/2016] [Indexed: 01/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Carcinoma associated fibroblasts (CAFs) form the main constituents of tumor stroma and play an important role in tumor growth and invasion. The presence of CAFs is a strong predictor of poor prognosis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Despite significant progress in determining the role of CAFs in tumor progression, the mechanisms contributing to their activation remain poorly characterized, in part due to fibroblast heterogeneity and the scarcity of reliable fibroblast surface markers. To search for such markers in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), we applied a novel approach that uses RNA-sequencing data derived from the cancer genome atlas (TCGA). Specifically, our strategy allowed for an unbiased identification of genes whose expression was closely associated with a set of bona fide stroma-specific transcripts, namely the interstitial collagens COL1A1, COL1A2, and COL3A1. Among the top hits were genes involved in cellular matrix remodeling and tumor invasion and migration, including platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRβ), which was found to be the highest-ranking receptor protein genome-wide. Similar analyses performed on ten additional TCGA cancer datasets revealed that other tumor types shared CAF markers with OSCC, including PDGFRβ, which was found to significantly correlate with the reference collagen expression in ten of the 11 cancer types tested. Subsequent immunostaining of OSCC specimens demonstrated that PDGFRβ was abundantly expressed in stromal fibroblasts of all tested cases (12/12), while it was absent in tumor cells, with greater specificity than other known markers such as alpha smooth muscle actin or podoplanin (3/11). Overall, this study identified PDGFRβ as a novel marker of stromal activation in OSCC, and further characterized a list of promising candidate CAF markers that may be relevant to other carcinomas. Our novel approach provides for a fast and accurate method to identify CAF markers without the need for large-scale immunostaining experiments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vinay K. Kartha
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Lukasz Stawski
- Arthritis Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Rong Han
- Arthritis Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Paul Haines
- Arthritis Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - George Gallagher
- Division of Oral Pathology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Vikki Noonan
- Division of Oral Pathology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Maria Kukuruzinska
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Stefano Monti
- Division of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- * E-mail: (MT); (SM)
| | - Maria Trojanowska
- Arthritis Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- * E-mail: (MT); (SM)
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Hiemer SE, Zhang L, Kartha VK, Packer TS, Almershed M, Noonan V, Kukuruzinska M, Bais MV, Monti S, Varelas X. A YAP/TAZ-Regulated Molecular Signature Is Associated with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Mol Cancer Res 2015; 13:957-68. [PMID: 25794680 DOI: 10.1158/1541-7786.mcr-14-0580] [Citation(s) in RCA: 95] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/27/2014] [Accepted: 03/04/2015] [Indexed: 12/17/2022]
Abstract
UNLABELLED Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a prevalent form of cancer that develops from the epithelium of the oral cavity. OSCC is on the rise worldwide, and death rates associated with the disease are particularly high. Despite progress in understanding the mutational and expression landscape associated with OSCC, advances in deciphering these alterations for the development of therapeutic strategies have been limited. Further insight into the molecular cues that contribute to OSCC is therefore required. Here, we show that the transcriptional regulators YAP (YAP1) and TAZ (WWTR1), which are key effectors of the Hippo pathway, drive protumorigenic signals in OSCC. Regions of premalignant oral tissues exhibit aberrant nuclear YAP accumulation, suggesting that dysregulated YAP activity contributes to the onset of OSCC. Supporting this premise, we determined that nuclear YAP and TAZ activity drives OSCC cell proliferation, survival, and migration in vitro, and is required for OSCC tumor growth and metastasis in vivo. Global gene expression profiles associated with YAP and TAZ knockdown revealed changes in the control of gene expression implicated in protumorigenic signaling, including those required for cell cycle progression and survival. Notably, the transcriptional signature regulated by YAP and TAZ significantly correlates with gene expression changes occurring in human OSCCs identified by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), emphasizing a central role for YAP and TAZ in OSCC biology. IMPLICATIONS This study defines a YAP/TAZ-regulated transcriptional program in OSCC and reveals novel roles for nuclear YAP/TAZ activity in the onset and progression of this cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samantha E Hiemer
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Liye Zhang
- Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts. Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Trevor S Packer
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Munirah Almershed
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Vikki Noonan
- Division of Oral Pathology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Maria Kukuruzinska
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Manish V Bais
- Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Boston University School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Stefano Monti
- Section of Computational Biomedicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - Xaralabos Varelas
- Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.
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Hoss AG, Labadorf A, Latourelle JC, Kartha VK, Hadzi TC, Gusella JF, MacDonald ME, Chen JF, Akbarian S, Weng Z, Vonsattel JP, Myers RH. miR-10b-5p expression in Huntington's disease brain relates to age of onset and the extent of striatal involvement. BMC Med Genomics 2015; 8:10. [PMID: 25889241 PMCID: PMC4349621 DOI: 10.1186/s12920-015-0083-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 84] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2014] [Accepted: 02/06/2015] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that recognize sites of complementarity of target messenger RNAs, resulting in transcriptional regulation and translational repression of target genes. In Huntington’s disease (HD), a neurodegenerative disease caused by a trinucleotide repeat expansion, miRNA dyregulation has been reported, which may impact gene expression and modify the progression and severity of HD. Methods We performed next-generation miRNA sequence analysis in prefrontal cortex (Brodmann Area 9) from 26 HD, 2 HD gene positive, and 36 control brains. Neuropathological information was available for all HD brains, including age at disease onset, CAG-repeat size, Vonsattel grade, and Hadzi-Vonsattel striatal and cortical scores, a continuous measure of the extent of neurodegeneration. Linear models were performed to examine the relationship of miRNA expression to these clinical features, and messenger RNA targets of associated miRNAs were tested for gene ontology term enrichment. Results We identified 75 miRNAs differentially expressed in HD brain (FDR q-value <0.05). Among the HD brains, nine miRNAs were significantly associated with Vonsattel grade of neuropathological involvement and three of these, miR-10b-5p, miR-10b-3p, and miR-302a-3p, significantly related to the Hadzi-Vonsattel striatal score (a continuous measure of striatal involvement) after adjustment for CAG length. Five miRNAs (miR-10b-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-196b-5p, miR-10b-3p, and miR-106a-5p) were identified as having a significant relationship to CAG length-adjusted age of onset including miR-10b-5p, the mostly strongly over-expressed miRNA in HD cases. Although prefrontal cortex was the source of tissue profiled in these studies, the relationship of miR-10b-5p expression to striatal involvement in the disease was independent of cortical involvement. Correlation of miRNAs to the clinical features clustered by direction of effect and the gene targets of the observed miRNAs showed association to processes relating to nervous system development and transcriptional regulation. Conclusions These results demonstrate that miRNA expression in cortical BA9 provides insight into striatal involvement and support a role for these miRNAs, particularly miR-10b-5p, in HD pathogenicity. The miRNAs identified in our studies of postmortem brain tissue may be detectable in peripheral fluids and thus warrant consideration as accessible biomarkers for disease stage, rate of progression, and other important clinical characteristics of HD. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12920-015-0083-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew G Hoss
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. .,Graduate Program in Genetics and Genomics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Adam Labadorf
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. .,Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Jeanne C Latourelle
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Vinay K Kartha
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Tiffany C Hadzi
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - James F Gusella
- Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Marcy E MacDonald
- Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Jiang-Fan Chen
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Schahram Akbarian
- Friedman Brain Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
| | - Zhiping Weng
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
| | - Jean Paul Vonsattel
- Department of Pathology and Cell Biology, Columbia University Medical Center and the New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, USA.
| | - Richard H Myers
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. .,Genome Science Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
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16
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Hoss AG, Kartha VK, Dong X, Latourelle JC, Dumitriu A, Hadzi TC, MacDonald ME, Gusella JF, Akbarian S, Chen JF, Weng Z, Myers RH. MicroRNAs located in the Hox gene clusters are implicated in huntington's disease pathogenesis. PLoS Genet 2014; 10:e1004188. [PMID: 24586208 PMCID: PMC3937267 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1004188] [Citation(s) in RCA: 84] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2013] [Accepted: 01/06/2014] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Transcriptional dysregulation has long been recognized as central to the pathogenesis of Huntington's disease (HD). MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent a major system of post-transcriptional regulation, by either preventing translational initiation or by targeting transcripts for storage or for degradation. Using next-generation miRNA sequencing in prefrontal cortex (Brodmann Area 9) of twelve HD and nine controls, we identified five miRNAs (miR-10b-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-196b-5p, miR-615-3p and miR-1247-5p) up-regulated in HD at genome-wide significance (FDR q-value<0.05). Three of these, miR-196a-5p, miR-196b-5p and miR-615-3p, were expressed at near zero levels in control brains. Expression was verified for all five miRNAs using reverse transcription quantitative PCR and all but miR-1247-5p were replicated in an independent sample (8HD/8C). Ectopic miR-10b-5p expression in PC12 HTT-Q73 cells increased survival by MTT assay and cell viability staining suggesting increased expression may be a protective response. All of the miRNAs but miR-1247-5p are located in intergenic regions of Hox clusters. Total mRNA sequencing in the same samples identified fifteen of 55 genes within the Hox cluster gene regions as differentially expressed in HD, and the Hox genes immediately adjacent to the four Hox cluster miRNAs as up-regulated. Pathway analysis of mRNA targets of these miRNAs implicated functions for neuronal differentiation, neurite outgrowth, cell death and survival. In regression models among the HD brains, huntingtin CAG repeat size, onset age and age at death were independently found to be inversely related to miR-10b-5p levels. CAG repeat size and onset age were independently inversely related to miR-196a-5p, onset age was inversely related to miR-196b-5p and age at death was inversely related to miR-615-3p expression. These results suggest these Hox-related miRNAs may be involved in neuroprotective response in HD. Recently, miRNAs have shown promise as biomarkers for human diseases and given their relationship to disease expression, these miRNAs are biomarker candidates in HD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andrew G. Hoss
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Graduate Program in Genetics and Genomics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Vinay K. Kartha
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Bioinformatics Program, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Xianjun Dong
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Jeanne C. Latourelle
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Alexandra Dumitriu
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Tiffany C. Hadzi
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Marcy E. MacDonald
- Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - James F. Gusella
- Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Schahram Akbarian
- Friedman Brain Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Jiang-Fan Chen
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Zhiping Weng
- Program in Bioinformatics and Integrative Biology, and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
| | - Richard H. Myers
- Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Genome Science Institute, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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