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IL6/STAT3 co-opts ER/FOXA1 regulatory elements to drive metastasis in breast cancer (RNA-Seq)

ABSTRACT: Interleukin 6 (IL6) signaling has been associated with an aggressive and metastatic phenotype in multiple solid tumors including breast cancer, but its mechanism of action in mediating tumor progression and treatment response is not clear. By exploiting a clinically relevant intraductal xenograft model of estrogen receptor a positive (ER+) breast cancer, we demonstrate that IL6 increases both primary tumor growth and distant metastases. In pre-clinical models and clinical specimens, signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) mediates IL6-induced activation of a metastatic gene program from enhancers shared with ER and its pioneer factor FOXA1. However, STAT3 drives transcription independent of ER and FOXA1 function from these enhancers, and the IL6/STAT3 pathway is therefore resistant to ER-targeted therapies, decoupling these two important oncogenic pathways. This demonstrates that ER/FOXA1 and IL6/STAT3 are two parallel, but functionally independent and actionable pathways controlling breast cancer progression.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE126003 | GEO | 2020/07/17

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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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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IL6/STAT3 co-opts ER/FOXA1 regulatory elements to drive metastasis in breast cancer (RNA-Seq)

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