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FOXA1 upregulation promotes enhancer and transcriptional reprogramming in endocrine-resistant breast cancer [RNA-seq]

ABSTRACT: Forkhead box A1 (FOXA1) is a pioneer factor that facilitates chromatin binding and function of lineage-specific and oncogenic transcription factors. Here, we have demonstrated that FOXA1 overexpression in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells drives genome-wide enhancer reprogramming to activate pro-metastatic transcriptional programs. We have identified the hypoxia-inducible transcription factor HIF-2α as the top FOXA1-engaged super-enhancer target induced by FOXA1 overexpression, activating pro-metastatic gene signatures associated with poor breast cancer outcome. Using two different siRNA sequences, we identified 917 and 1,107 genes commonly down- and up-regulated (FDR < 0.05), respectively, upon HIF-2α knockdown in tamoxifen-resistant MCF7L cells. The enriched GO terms of the down-regulated genes were predominantly linked to tumor metastatic traits. GSEA showed that this HIF-2α-dependent gene set was significantly enriched in the transcriptomes of the TCGA ER+ breast tumors expressing high HIF-2α, but not high HIF-1α. We show the selective efficacy of a HIF-2α antagonist (PT2385), currently in clinical trial for renal cell carcinoma, in repressing migration and clonogenicity of endocrine-resistant breast cancer cells expressing high FOXA1. Our study suggests that targeting HIF-2α is a new approach blocking the aberrant transcriptional programs under high FOXA1-induced enhancer reprogramming in treating endocrine-resistant and metastatic breast cancer.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE124655 | GEO | 2019/12/18

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Aberrant activation of the forkhead protein FOXA1 is observed in advanced hormone-related cancers. However, to date, key mediators of high FOXA1 signaling remain elusive. We demonstrate that ectopic high FOXA1 (H-FOXA1) expression promotes estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer (BC) metastasis in a xenograft mouse model. Mechanistically, H-FOXA1 reprograms ER-chromatin binding to elicit a core gene signature (CGS) highly enriched in ER+ endocrine-resistant (EndoR) cells. We identified Secretome14, a CGS subset encoding ER-dependent cancer secretory proteins, strongly predicts poor outcomes of ER+ BC and is elevated in ER+ metastases vs. primary tumors, irrespective to the ESR1 mutations. Parental (P) ER+ BC cells and their endocrine-resistant (EndoR) derivatives, and ER+ BC cells expressing doxycycline (Dox)-inducible ectopic FOXA1 were used in this study. Differential gene expression analysis was performed in EndoR vs. P cells and P cells +Dox vs. -Dox. We found that the FOXA1-CGS was highly enriched in the altered transcriptomes of two ER+ BC cell models (ZR75-1 and T47D) expressing ectopic H-FOXA1. The enriched hallmark gene sets, shared by the H-FOXA1 cell models, include “inflammatory response”, “complement”, and “interferon gamma response” for the H-FOXA1-induced, and “estrogen response early” and “estrogen response late” for the H-FOXA1-repressed genes. These findings point to the common transcriptional profile exhibiting an immune- over estrogen-responsive signature induced by H-FOXA1. In addition, we found that both the tamoxifen-resistant (TamR) and estrogen deprivation-resistant (EDR) derivatives of the 600MPE P cells were enriched for the H-FOXA1-induced CGS and FOXA1/ER-activated Secretome14. Our findings uncover H-FOXA1-induced ER reprogramming driving EndoR and metastasis, possibly via a H-FOXA1/ER-dependent secretome that warrants further studies to clarify its involvement in disease progression of ER+ metastatic BC.

Project description:FOXA1 is a pioneer factor that is important in hormone dependent cancer cells to stabilise nuclear receptors, such as estrogen receptor (ER) to chromatin. FOXA1 binds to enhancers regions that are enriched in H3K4mono- and dimethylation (H3K4me1, H3K4me2) histone marks and evidence suggests that these marks are requisite events for FOXA1 to associate with enhancers to initate subsequent gene expression events. However, exogenous expression of FOXA1 has been shown to induce H3K4me1 and H3K4me2 signal at enhancer elements and the order of events and the functional importance of these events is not clear. We performed a FOXA1 Rapid Immunoprecipitation Mass Spectrometry of Endogenous Proteins (RIME) screen in ERα-positive MCF-7 breast cancer cells in order to identify FOXA1 interacting partners and we found histone-lysine N-methyltransferase (MLL3) as the top FOXA1 interacting protein. MLL3 is typically thought to induce H3K4me3 at promoter regions, but recent findings suggest it may contribute to H3K4me1 deposition, in line with our observation that MLL3 associates with an enhancer specific protein. We performed MLL3 ChIP-seq in breast cancer cells and unexpectedly found that MLL3 binds mostly at non-promoter regions enhancers, in contrast to the prevailing hypothesis. MLL3 was shown to occupy regions marked by FOXA1 occupancy and as expected, H3K4me1 and H3K4me2. MLL3 binding was dependent on FOXA1, indicating that FOXA1 recruits MLL3 to chromatin. Motif analysis and subsequent genomic mapping revealed a role for Grainy head like protein-2 (GRHL2) which was shown to co-occupy regions of the chromatin with MLL3. Regions occupied by all three factors, namely FOXA1, MLL3 and GRHL2, were most enriched in H3K4me1. MLL3 silencing decreased H3K4me1 at enhancer elements, but had no appreciable impact on H3K4me3 at enhancer elements. We identify a complex relationship between FOXA1, MLL3 and H3K4me1 at enhancers in breast cancer and propose a mechanism whereby the pioneer factor FOXA1 can interact with a chromatin modifier MLL3, recruiting it to chromatin to facilitate the deposition of H3K4me1 histone marks, subsequently demarcating active enhancer elements.

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FOXA1 upregulation promotes enhancer and transcriptional reprogramming in endocrine-resistant breast cancer [RNA-seq]

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