ABSTRACT: Ewings Sarcoma (ES) belongs to the group of bone cancers defined by the existence of a certain EWS-ETS fusion gene. In this study we use the model cell line CADO-ES1 (EWSR1-ERG fusion gene) to characterize the genomic structure in respect to CNV and fusion gene events.
Project description:Ewings Sarcoma (ES) belongs to the group of bone cancers defined by the existence of a certain EWS-ETS fusion gene. In this study we use the model cell line CADO-ES1 (EWSR1-ERG fusion gene) to characterize the tumor biology of a versatile ES side-population (SP). We aim to compare SP- and non-SP-cells to identify specific characteristics of the SP which points towards a tumor driving functionality of the SP. Due to some stem cell like properties of the SP fraction a comparison to MSCs and normal fibroblasts as a control are also performed.
Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive pediatric small round cell tumor that predominantly occurs in bone. Approximately 85% of Ewing sarcomas harbor the EWS/FLI fusion protein, which arises from a chromosomal translocation, t(11:22)(q24:q12). EWS/FLI interacts with numerous lineage-essential transcription factors to maintain mesenchymal progenitors in an undifferentiated state. We previously showed that EWS/FLI binds the osteogenic transcription factor RUNX2 and prevents osteoblast differentiation. In this study, we investigated the role of another Runt-domain protein, RUNX3, in Ewing sarcoma. RUNX3 participates in mesenchymal-derived bone formation and is a context dependent tumor suppressor and oncogene. RUNX3 was detected in all Ewing sarcoma cells examined, whereas RUNX2 was detected in only 73% of specimens. Like RUNX2, RUNX3 binds to EWS/FLI via its Runt domain. EWS/FLI prevented RUNX3 from activating the transcription of a RUNX-responsive reporter, p6OSE2. Stable suppression of RUNX3 expression in the Ewing sarcoma cell line A673 delayed colony growth in anchorage independent soft agar assays and reversed expression of EWS/FLI-responsive genes. These results demonstrate an important role for RUNX3 in Ewing sarcoma. RNA-seq to compare transcriptiome of control A673 ewing sarcoma cells stably expression a non-target or RUNX3 shRNA
Project description:An increasing number of cancer-associated mutations have been identified. Unfortunately, little therapy today exploits these tumor-specific genetic lesions. Often, the resulting oncoproteins have been intractable to easy manipulation with current small molecule screening approaches. To overcome this impasse, we developed an expression-based approach to small molecule library screening. We applied this platform to the discovery of modulators of the activity of EWS/FLI, the Ewing sarcoma associated oncoprotein. Cytarabine (ARA-C) was identified as the top hit in a small molecule library screen. ARA-C modulates EWS/FLI by decreasing EWS/FLI protein level and has striking effects on cellular viability and transformation in in vitro and in vivo models of Ewing sarcoma. With poor outcomes for patients with relapsed Ewing sarcoma and the well established safety profile of ARA-C, clinical trials testing ARA-C in Ewing sarcoma are warranted. Expression data was created for A673 cells treated with ARA-C and two other compounds used to treat Ewing sarcoma (Puromycin and Doxorubicin) at two doses (EC50 and 2xEC50) and three time points (24 hours, 3 days, and 5 days). Experiment Overall Design: A673 cells were treated with ARA-C (at doses of EC50 and 2xEC50) or vehicle in triplicate and expression profiled at 24 hours, 3 days, and 5 days. To exclude the possibility that ARA-C's modulation of the EWS/FLI signature was simply a non-specific response to treatment with all cytotoxic agents, we asked whether other compounds known to kill Ewing sarcoma cells (Doxorubicin and Puromycin) would induce the EWS/FLI off genome-wide expression pattern. A673 cells were treated with Doxorubicin and Puromycin (at doses of EC50 and 2xEC50) and expression profiled at 24 hours, 3 days, and 5 days.
Project description:Ewing Sarcoma is caused by a pathognomonic genomic translocation that places an N-terminal EWSR1 gene in approximation with one of several ETS genes (typically FLI1). This aberration, in turn, alters the transcriptional regulation of more than five hundred genes and perturbs a number of critical pathways that promote oncogenesis, cell growth, invasion, and metastasis. Among them, translocation-mediated up-regulation of the insulin-like growth factor receptor 1 (IGF-1R) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) are of particular importance since they work in concert to facilitate IGF-1R expression and ligand-induced activation, respectively, of proven importance in ES transformation. When used as a single agent in Ewing sarcoma therapy, IGF-1R or mTOR inhibition leads to rapid counter-regulatory effects that blunt the intended therapeutic purpose. Therefore, identify new mechanisms of resistance that are used by Ewing sarcoma to evade cell death to single-agent mTOR inhibition might suggest a number of therapeutic combinations that could improve its clinical activity. TC32 and TC71 ES clones with acquired resistance to ridaforolimus (MK8669, mTOR inhibitor) were generated by maintaining the corresponding parental cell lines with increasing concentrations of the agents (up to 50 μM using ridaforolimus) for 7 months. All parental and acquired drug resistant cell lines were tested twice per year for mycoplasma contamination using the MycoAlert Detection Kit (Lonza Group Ltd.) according to the manufacturerâ??s protocol and validated using short-tandem repeat fingerprinting with an AmpFLSTR Identifier kit as previously described. Herein, we determine subtle differences in acquired mechanism of resistance by promising small molecule inhibitor of mTOR, were evaluated using in vitro assays to decipher the mechanism(s) by which IGF-1R inhibition induces drug resistance in Ewing sarcoma cells. The preparation of extracted proteins from sensitive and acquired resistant Ewing sarcoma cells to ridaforolimus for reverse-phase protein lysate array (RPPA) analysis were prepared using the same array. Lysates were processed, spotted onto nitrocellulose-coated FAST slides, probed with 115 validated primary antibodies, and detected using a DakoCytomation-catalyzed system with secondary antibodies. MicroVigene software program (VigeneTech) was used for automated spot identification, background correction, and individual spot-intensity determination. Expression data was normalized for possible unequal protein loading, taking into account the signal intensity for each sample for all antibodies tested. Log2 values were media-centered by protein to account for variability in signal intensity by time and were calculated using the formula log2 signal â?? log2 median. Principal component analysis was used to check for a batch effect and feature-by-feature two-sample t-tests were used to assess differences between sensitive and resistant cell lines to drug treatments. We also used feature-by-feature one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey test to perform pair comparisons for all groups. Beta-uniform mixture models were used to fit the resulting p value distributions to adjust for multiple comparisons. The cutoff p values and number of significant proteins were computed for several different false discovery rates (FDRs). Biostatistical analyses comparing two groups were performed using an unpaired t-test with Gaussian distribution followed by the Welch correction. To distinguish between treatment groups, we used one-way ANOVA with the Geisser-Greenhouse correction. Differences with p values <0.05 were considered significant. Within clustered image maps (CIM), unsupervised double hierarchical clustering used the Pearson correlation distance and Wardâ??s linkage method as the clustering algorithm to link entities (proteins) and samples.
Project description:Protein occupancy is a means of identifying all the regions in the genome that are bound to proteins. A simple protocol is used whereby cross-linked chromatin is digested with DNase to remove all non-crosslinked, naked, DNA. To distinguish the regions that are bound by RNA polymerase from the rest, a ChAPseq (chromatin affinity precipitation) with TAP-tagged alpha subunit of RNApol, was performed.
Project description:We show that EWS-FLI1, an aberrant transcription factor responsible for the pathogenesis of Ewing sarcoma, reprograms gene regulatory circuits by directly inducing or directly repressing enhancers. At GGAA repeats, which lack regulatory potential in other cell types and are not evolutionarily conserved, EWS- FLI1 multimers potently induce chromatin opening, recruit p300 and WDR5, and create de novo enhancers. GGAA repeat enhancers can loop to physically interact with target promoters, as demonstrated by chromosome conformation capture assays. Conversely, EWS-FLI1 inactivates conserved enhancers containing canonical ETS motifs by displacing wild-type ETS transcription factors and abrogating p300 recruitment. Ewing sarcoma cell lines (A673 and SKNMC) were analyzed by RNA-seq. EWS-FLI1 was depleted by infection with lentiviral shRNAs (shFLI1 and shGFP control).
Project description:We show that EWS-FLI1, an aberrant transcription factor responsible for the pathogenesis of Ewing sarcoma, reprograms gene regulatory circuits by directly inducing or directly repressing enhancers. At GGAA repeats, which lack regulatory potential in other cell types and are not evolutionarily conserved, EWS- FLI1 multimers potently induce chromatin opening, recruit p300 and WDR5, and create de novo enhancers. GGAA repeat enhancers can loop to physically interact with target promoters, as demonstrated by chromosome conformation capture assays. Conversely, EWS-FLI1 inactivates conserved enhancers containing canonical ETS motifs by displacing wild-type ETS transcription factors and abrogating p300 recruitment. ChIP-seq for of 4 histone modifications (H3K27ac, H3K4me1, H3K4me3 and H3K27me3), FLI1, p300, WDR5, ELF1 and GABPA in primary Ewing sarcomas, Ewing sarcoma cell lines (A673 and SKMNC cells), and mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). EWS-FLI1 was knocked down in Ewing sarcoma cell lines with lentiviral shRNAs (shFLI1 and shGFP control). EWS-FLI1 was expressed in MSCs with lentiviral expression vectors (pLIV EWSFLI1 or pLIV empty vector control). * Raw data not provided for the MSC and Primary Ewing sarcoma samples. *
Project description:Ewing Sarcoma is caused by a pathognomonic genomic translocation that places an N-terminal EWSR1 gene in approximation with one of several ETS genes (typically FLI1). This aberration, in turn, alters the transcriptional regulation of more than five hundred genes and perturbs a number of critical pathways that promote oncogenesis, cell growth, invasion, and metastasis. Among them, translocation-mediated up-regulation of the insulin-like growth factor receptor 1 (IGF-1R) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) are of particular importance since they work in concert to facilitate IGF-1R expression and ligand-induced activation, respectively, of proven importance in ES transformation. When used as a single agent in Ewing sarcoma therapy, IGF-1R or mTOR inhibition leads to rapid counter-regulatory effects that blunt the intended therapeutic purpose. Therefore, identify new mechanisms of resistance that are used by Ewing sarcoma to evade cell death to single-agent IGF-1R inhibition might suggest a number of therapeutic combinations that could improve its clinical activity. TC32 and TC71 ES clones with acquired resistance to OSI-906 or NVP-ADW-742 were generated by maintaining the corresponding parental cell lines with increasing concentrations of the agents (up to 2.3 μM for OSI-906, 1.5 μM for NVP-ADW-742) for 7 months. All parental and acquired drug resistant cell lines were tested twice per year for mycoplasma contamination using the MycoAlert Detection Kit (Lonza Group Ltd.) according to the manufacturerâs protocol and validated using short-tandem repeat fingerprinting with an AmpFLSTR Identifier kit as previously described. Herein, we determine subtle differences in acquired mechanism of resistance by two promising small molecule inhibitors of IGF-1R/IR-α. OSI-906, which inhibits IGF-1R and IR, and NVP-ADW-742, which inhibits only IGF-1R, were evaluated using in vitro assays to decipher the mechanism(s) by which IGF-1R inhibition induces drug resistance in Ewing sarcoma cells. The preparation of extracted proteins from sensitive and acquired resistant Ewing sarcoma cells to OSI-906 and NVP-ADW-742 for reverse-phase protein lysate array (RPPA) analysis were prepared using the same array. Lysates were processed, spotted onto nitrocellulose-coated FAST slides, probed with 115 validated primary antibodies, and detected using a DakoCytomation-catalyzed system with secondary antibodies. MicroVigene software program (VigeneTech) was used for automated spot identification, background correction, and individual spot-intensity determination. Expression data was normalized for possible unequal protein loading, taking into account the signal intensity for each sample for all antibodies tested. Log2 values were media-centered by protein to account for variability in signal intensity by time and were calculated using the formula log2 signal â log2 median. Principal component analysis was used to check for a batch effect and feature-by-feature two-sample t-tests were used to assess differences between sensitive and resistant cell lines to drug treatments. We also used feature-by-feature one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the Tukey test to perform pair comparisons for all groups. Beta-uniform mixture models were used to fit the resulting p value distributions to adjust for multiple comparisons. The cutoff p values and number of significant proteins were computed for several different false discovery rates (FDRs). Biostatistical analyses comparing two groups were performed using an unpaired t-test with Gaussian distribution followed by the Welch correction. To distinguish between treatment groups, we used one-way ANOVA with the Geisser-Greenhouse correction. Differences with p values <0.05 were considered significant. Within clustered image maps (CIM), unsupervised double hierarchical clustering used the Pearson correlation distance and Wardâs linkage method as the clustering algorithm to link entities (proteins) and samples.