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EWS-FLI1 reactivates a neural crest stem cell program in human neural crest-derived mesenchymal stem cells

ABSTRACT: Ewing sarcoma family of tumors (ESFT) are aggressive bone and soft tissue tumors of unknown cellular origin. Most ESFT express EWS-FLI1, a chimeric protein which functions as a growth-promoting oncogene in ESFT but is toxic to most normal cells. A major difficulty in understanding EWS-FLI1 function has been the lack of an adequate model in which to study EWS-FLI1-induced transformation. Although the cell of origin of ESFT remains elusive, both mesenchymal (MSC) and neural crest (NCSC) have been implicated. We recently developed the tools to generate NCSC from human embryonic stem cells (hNCSC). In the current study we used this model to test the hypothesis that neural crest-derived stem cells are the cells of origin of ESFT and to evaluate the consequences of EWS-FLI1 expression on human neural crest biology. hNCSC transduced with an EWS-FLI1 lentivirus tolerated expression of the oncoprotein. Moreover, EWS-FLI1-transduced hNCSC continued to proliferate and maintain EWS-FLI1 expression in culture for several weeks after transduction. Affymetrix HuEx 1.0 expression profiling of hNCSC cells five days post-transduction with EWS-FLI1 demonstrated the expected induction and repression of well-established EWS-FLI1 targets and also identified numerous other novel EWS-FLI1-regulated genes that are likely to be cell-type and situation specific. In particular, the EWS-FLI1 repressive signature was found to be highly context dependent. Moreover, while control vector transduced cells displayed an MSC-like phenotype, EWS-FLI1-transduced cells maintained a NCSC-like phenotype and genetic profiling revealed reprogramming towards a more pluriopotent, neuroectodermal state. Finally, EWS-FLI1 expressing cells upregulated expression of the polycomb proteins BMI-1 and EZH2. These data implicate neural crest-derived cells in the origin of ESFT and suggest that EWS-FLI1 enables malignant transformation by inducing maintenance of a multipotent, NCSC-state through deregulation of polycomb genes.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE21511 | GEO | 2010/06/15

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA125985

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Ewing sarcoma family of tumors (ESFT) are aggressive bone and soft tissue tumors of unknown cellular origin. Most ESFT express EWS-FLI1, a chimeric protein which functions as a growth-promoting oncogene in ESFT but is toxic to most normal cells. A major difficulty in understanding EWS-FLI1 function has been the lack of an adequate model in which to study EWS-FLI1-induced transformation. Although the cell of origin of ESFT remains elusive, both mesenchymal (MSC) and neural crest (NCSC) have been implicated. We recently developed the tools to generate NCSC from human embryonic stem cells (hNCSC). In the current study we used this model to test the hypothesis that neural crest-derived stem cells are the cells of origin of ESFT and to evaluate the consequences of EWS-FLI1 expression on human neural crest biology. hNCSC transduced with an EWS-FLI1 lentivirus tolerated expression of the oncoprotein. Moreover, EWS-FLI1-transduced hNCSC continued to proliferate and maintain EWS-FLI1 expression in culture for several weeks after transduction. Affymetrix HuEx 1.0 expression profiling of hNCSC cells five days post-transduction with EWS-FLI1 demonstrated the expected induction and repression of well-established EWS-FLI1 targets and also identified numerous other novel EWS-FLI1-regulated genes that are likely to be cell-type and situation specific. In particular, the EWS-FLI1 repressive signature was found to be highly context dependent. Moreover, while control vector transduced cells displayed an MSC-like phenotype, EWS-FLI1-transduced cells maintained a NCSC-like phenotype and genetic profiling revealed reprogramming towards a more pluriopotent, neuroectodermal state. Finally, EWS-FLI1 expressing cells upregulated expression of the polycomb proteins BMI-1 and EZH2. These data implicate neural crest-derived cells in the origin of ESFT and suggest that EWS-FLI1 enables malignant transformation by inducing maintenance of a multipotent, NCSC-state through deregulation of polycomb genes. 3 replicate samples for 4 different stem cell populations were analyzed by HuEx arrays. The 4 sample types were adult human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells, human embryonic stem cell-derived nueral crest stem cells (hNCSC), control vector-transduced hNCSC-derived mesenchymal stem cells (NC-MSC), and EWS-FLI1-transduced hNCSC-derived mesenchymal stem cells (NC-MSC EF). Control and EWS-FLI1 transduced NC-MSC were isolated 5 days after lentiviral transduction. Transcript level expression data was compared among the different populations to determine differences and similarities between NCSC, BM-MSC and NC-MSC with/without EWS-FLI1 expression. These data were used to identify EWS-FLI1 targets in NC-MSC and to characterize the genetic changes that occur in NCSC as they generate NC-MSC progeny.

Project description:EWS-FLI1 is a chimeric ETS transcription factor that is, due to a chromosomal rearrangement, specifically expressed in Ewingâs sarcoma family tumors (ESFT) and is thought to be the initiating event in the development of the disease. Previous genomic profiling experiments have identified a number of EWS-FLI1 regulated genes and genes that discriminate ESFT from other sarcomas, but so far a comprehensive analysis of EWS-FLI1 dependent molecular functions characterizing this aggressive cancer is lacking. In this study a molecular function map of ESFT was constructed based on an integrative analysis of gene expression profiling experiments on a uniform microarray platform following EWS-FLI1 knockdown in a panel of five ESFT cell lines, and on gene expression data from the same platform of 59 primary ESFT tumors. Based on the assumption that EWS-FLI1 is the driving transcriptional force in ESFT pathogenesis, we predicted an inverse correlation of gene expression for EWS-FLI1 regulated genes between the putative tissue of origin and the cell lines under EWS-FLI1 knockdown conditions. Consistent with recent reports, mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPC) were found to fit this hypothesis best and were therefore used as the reference tissue for the construction of the molecular function map in ESFT. The interrelations of molecular pathways were visualized by measuring the similarity among annotated gene functions by gene sharing. The molecular function map highlighted distinct clusters of activities for EWS-FLI1 regulated genes in ESFT and revealed a striking difference between EWS-FLI1 up- and down-regulated genes: EWS-FLI1 induced genes mainly belong to cell cycle regulation, proliferation and response to DNA damage, while repressed genes were associated with differentiation and cell communication. This study revealed that EWS-FLI1 combines by distinct molecular mechanisms two important functions of cellular transformation in one protein, growth promotion and differentiation blockage. By taking MPC as a reference tissue a significant EWS-FLI1 signature was discovered in ESFT that only partially overlapped with previously published EWS-FLI1 dependent gene expression patterns, identifying a series of novel targets for the chimeric protein in ESFT. Our results may guide target selection for future ESFT specific therapies. Experiment Overall Design: EWS-FLI1 knock down was performed by expressing specific siRNAs against EWS-FLI1 as small hairpin (sh) RNAs from pSUPER-based retroviral expression constructs in 5 different Ewing's sarcoma cell lines (WE68, SK-N-MC, TC252, STA-ET-1, STA-ET-7.2). As a negative control in each cell line, pSTNeg (Ambion, Applied Biosystems, Brunn am Gebirge, Austria) encoding a scrambled shRNA with no significant similarity to human sequences was used.

Project description:EWS-FLI1 is a chimeric ETS transcription factor that is, due to a chromosomal rearrangement, specifically expressed in Ewing’s sarcoma family tumors (ESFT) and is thought to be the initiating event in the development of the disease. Previous genomic profiling experiments have identified a number of EWS-FLI1 regulated genes and genes that discriminate ESFT from other sarcomas, but so far a comprehensive analysis of EWS-FLI1 dependent molecular functions characterizing this aggressive cancer is lacking. In this study a molecular function map of ESFT was constructed based on an integrative analysis of gene expression profiling experiments on a uniform microarray platform following EWS-FLI1 knockdown in a panel of five ESFT cell lines, and on gene expression data from the same platform of 59 primary ESFT tumors. Based on the assumption that EWS-FLI1 is the driving transcriptional force in ESFT pathogenesis, we predicted an inverse correlation of gene expression for EWS-FLI1 regulated genes between the putative tissue of origin and the cell lines under EWS-FLI1 knockdown conditions. Consistent with recent reports, mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPC) were found to fit this hypothesis best and were therefore used as the reference tissue for the construction of the molecular function map in ESFT. The interrelations of molecular pathways were visualized by measuring the similarity among annotated gene functions by gene sharing. The molecular function map highlighted distinct clusters of activities for EWS-FLI1 regulated genes in ESFT and revealed a striking difference between EWS-FLI1 up- and down-regulated genes: EWS-FLI1 induced genes mainly belong to cell cycle regulation, proliferation and response to DNA damage, while repressed genes were associated with differentiation and cell communication. This study revealed that EWS-FLI1 combines by distinct molecular mechanisms two important functions of cellular transformation in one protein, growth promotion and differentiation blockage. By taking MPC as a reference tissue a significant EWS-FLI1 signature was discovered in ESFT that only partially overlapped with previously published EWS-FLI1 dependent gene expression patterns, identifying a series of novel targets for the chimeric protein in ESFT. Our results may guide target selection for future ESFT specific therapies. Keywords: Ewing's Sarcoma, EWS-FLI1, RNAi knock down and controls

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EWS-FLI1 reactivates a neural crest stem cell program in human neural crest-derived mesenchymal stem cells

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