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Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone tumor of adolescence characterized by a hallmark EWSR1::FLI1 fusion oncogene. This chimeric protein drives tumorigenesis by reshaping transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes. However, how it is transcriptionally regulated and whether additional master transcription factors (MTFs) form a core regulatory circuit (CRC) in Ewing sarcoma remain unclear. Here, using an extensive panel of Ewing sarcoma cell lines and primary tumors, we mapped super-enhancers and identified strong enrichment of GGAA microsatellites, confirming their specificity to Ewing sarcoma as compared to other pediatric cancers and normal tissues. Integrating transcriptomic, epigenetic, 3D chromatin conformation, and dependency data, we predicted a set of MTFs potentially comprising a CRC. However, functional validation demonstrated that these MTFs neither establish auto-regulatory loops nor confer proliferative dependencies typical of CRC s in other pediatric tumors. Instead, EWSR1::FLI1 emerged as an “hegemonic” oncogene, regulating the expression of these MTFs without reciprocal regulation. Knockdown (KD) of EWSR1::FLI1 strongly reduced Ewing sarcoma cell proliferation and shifted H3K27ac profiles toward mesenchymal states, whereas silencing of individual or combined MTFs did not alter cell growth or EWSR1::FLI1 expression. These findings highlight the absence of a classical CRC in Ewing sarcoma and emphasize EWSR1::FLI1 as the dominant oncogene but also as a major vulnerability in this disease.
2025-12-15 | GSE293629 | GEO
Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone tumor of adolescence characterized by a hallmark EWSR1::FLI1 fusion oncogene. This chimeric protein drives tumorigenesis by reshaping transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes. However, how it is transcriptionally regulated and whether additional master transcription factors (MTFs) form a core regulatory circuit (CRC) in Ewing sarcoma remain unclear. Here, using an extensive panel of Ewing sarcoma cell lines and primary tumors, we mapped super-enhancers and identified strong enrichment of GGAA microsatellites, confirming their specificity to Ewing sarcoma as compared to other pediatric cancers and normal tissues. Integrating transcriptomic, epigenetic, 3D chromatin conformation, and dependency data, we predicted a set of MTFs potentially comprising a CRC. However, functional validation demonstrated that these MTFs neither establish auto-regulatory loops nor confer proliferative dependencies typical of CRC s in other pediatric tumors. Instead, EWSR1::FLI1 emerged as an “hegemonic” oncogene, regulating the expression of these MTFs without reciprocal regulation. Knockdown (KD) of EWSR1::FLI1 strongly reduced Ewing sarcoma cell proliferation and shifted H3K27ac profiles toward mesenchymal states, whereas silencing of individual or combined MTFs did not alter cell growth or EWSR1::FLI1 expression. These findings highlight the absence of a classical CRC in Ewing sarcoma and emphasize EWSR1::FLI1 as the dominant oncogene but also as a major vulnerability in this disease.
2025-12-15 | GSE293630 | GEO
Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone tumor of adolescence characterized by a hallmark EWSR1::FLI1 fusion oncogene. This chimeric protein drives tumorigenesis by reshaping transcriptional and epigenetic landscapes. However, how it is transcriptionally regulated and whether additional master transcription factors (MTFs) form a core regulatory circuit (CRC) in Ewing sarcoma remain unclear. Here, using an extensive panel of Ewing sarcoma cell lines and primary tumors, we mapped super-enhancers and identified strong enrichment of GGAA microsatellites, confirming their specificity to Ewing sarcoma as compared to other pediatric cancers and normal tissues. Integrating transcriptomic, epigenetic, 3D chromatin conformation, and dependency data, we predicted a set of MTFs potentially comprising a CRC. However, functional validation demonstrated that these MTFs neither establish auto-regulatory loops nor confer proliferative dependencies typical of CRC s in other pediatric tumors. Instead, EWSR1::FLI1 emerged as an “hegemonic” oncogene, regulating the expression of these MTFs without reciprocal regulation. Knockdown (KD) of EWSR1::FLI1 strongly reduced Ewing sarcoma cell proliferation and shifted H3K27ac profiles toward mesenchymal states, whereas silencing of individual or combined MTFs did not alter cell growth or EWSR1::FLI1 expression. These findings highlight the absence of a classical CRC in Ewing sarcoma and emphasize EWSR1::FLI1 as the dominant oncogene but also as a major vulnerability in this disease.
2025-12-15 | GSE293631 | GEO
Project description:The hegemonic EWSR1::ETS oncogene overrules core regulatory circuitry mechanisms in Ewing sarcoma.
| PRJNA1245388 | ENA
Project description:Core regulatory circuitry (CRC)-dependent transcriptional network is critical for developmental tumors in children and adolescents carrying few gene mutations. However, whether and how CRC contributes to transcription regulation in Ewing sarcoma is unknown. Here, we identify and functionally validate a CRC 'trio' constituted by three transcription factors (TFs): KLF15, TCF4 and NKX2-2, in Ewing sarcoma cells. Epigenomic analyses demonstrate that EWS-FLI1, the primary fusion driver for this cancer, directly establishes super-enhancers of each of these three TFs to activate their transcription. In turn, KLF15, TCF4 and NKX2-2 co-bind to their own and each other's super-enhancers and promoters, forming an inter-connected auto-regulatory loop. Functionally, CRC factors contribute significantly to cell proliferation of Ewing sarcoma both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, CRC factors exhibit prominent capacity of co-regulating the epigenome in cooperation with EWS-FLI1, occupying 77.2% of promoters and 55.6% of enhancers genome-wide. Downstream, CRC TFs coordinately regulate gene expression networks in Ewing sarcoma, controlling important signaling pathways for cancer, such as lipid metabolism pathway, PI3K/AKT and MAPK signaling pathways. Together, molecular characterization of the oncogenic CRC model advances our understanding of the biology of Ewing sarcoma. Moreover, CRC-downstream genes and signaling pathways may contain potential therapeutic targets for this malignancy.
| S-EPMC7672457 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an undifferentiated small-round-cell sarcoma. Although molecular detection of pathognomonic EWSR1-ETS fusions such as EWSR1-FLI1 enables definitive diagnosis, substantial confusion can arise if molecular diagnostics are unavailable. Diagnosis based on the conventional immunohistochemical marker CD99 is unreliable due to its abundant expression in morphological mimics. To identify novel diagnostic immunohistochemical markers for Ewing sarcoma, we performed comparative expression analyses in 768 tumors representing 21 entities including Ewing-like sarcomas, which confirmed that CIC-DUX4-, BCOR-CCNB3-, EWSR1-NFATc2-, and EWSR1-ETS-translocated sarcomas are distinct entities, and revealed that ATP1A1, BCL11B, and GLG1 constitute specific markers for Ewing sarcoma. Their high expression was validated by immunohistochemistry and proved to depend on EWSR1-FLI1-binding to highly active proximal super-enhancers. Automated cut-off-finding and combination-testing in a tissue-microarray comprising 174 samples demonstrated that detection of high BCL11B and/or GLG1 expression is sufficient to reach 96% specificity for Ewing sarcoma. While 88% of tested Ewing-like sarcomas displayed strong CD99-immunoreactivity, none displayed combined strong BCL11B- and GLG1-immunoreactivity. Collectively, we show that ATP1A1, BCL11B, and GLG1 are EWSR1-FLI1 targets, of which BCL11B and GLG1 offer a fast, simple, and cost-efficient way to diagnose Ewing sarcoma by immunohistochemistry. These markers may significantly reduce the number of misdiagnosed patients, and thus improve patient care.
| S-EPMC5788584 | biostudies-literature
Project description:PurposeRecent studies revealed divergent gene expression patterns in Ewing sarcoma (EwS) with canonical EWSR1-ETS gene fusions and undifferentiated round cell sarcomas (URCS) with EWSR1 rearrangements fused to the non-ETS gene NFATc2. Thus, the question arises whether the latter tumors really belong to EwS.MethodsWe collected five cases matching the group of URCS with EWSR1-NFATc2 fusion and performed DNA methylation and copy number profiling. Results were compared to methylation data of 30 EwS with various EWSR1-ETS fusions and one EwS with FUS-ERG fusion, 16 URCS with CIC rearrangement and 10 URCS with BCOR alteration and a total of 81 EWSR1-associated soft tissue sarcomas including 7 angiomatoid fibrous histiocytomas, 7 clear cell sarcomas of the soft tissue, 28 desmoplastic small round cell tumors, 10 extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcomas and 29 myxoid liposarcomas.ResultsUnsupervised hierarchical clustering and t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding analysis of DNA methylation data revealed a homogeneous methylation cluster for URCS with EWSR1-NFATc2 fusion, which clearly segregated from EwS and the other subtypes. Copy number profiles of EWSR1-NFATc2 cases showed recurrent losses on chromosome 9q and segmental gains on 20q13 and 22q12 involving the EWSR1 and NFATc2 loci, respectively.ConclusionIn summary, URCS with EWSR1-NFATc2 fusion share a distinct DNA methylation signature and carry characteristic copy number alterations, which emphasizes that these sarcomas should be considered separately from EwS.
| S-EPMC7607515 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ewing sarcoma (EwS) is an aggressive cancer displaying an undifferentiated small-round-cell histomorphology that can be easily confused with a broad spectrum of differential diagnoses. Using comparative transcriptomics and immunohistochemistry (IHC), we previously identified BCL11B and GLG1 as potential specific auxiliary IHC markers for EWSR1-FLI1-positive EwS. Herein, we aimed at validating the specificity of both markers in a far larger and independent cohort of EwS (including EWSR1-ERG-positive cases) and differential diagnoses. Furthermore, we evaluated their intra-tumoral expression heterogeneity. Thus, we stained tissue microarrays from 133 molecularly confirmed EwS cases and 320 samples from morphological mimics, as well as a series of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models for BCL11B, GLG1, and CD99, and systematically assessed the immunoreactivity and optimal cut-offs for each marker. These analyses demonstrated that high BCL11B and/or GLG1 immunoreactivity in CD99-positive cases had a specificity of 97.5% and an accuracy of 87.4% for diagnosing EwS solely by IHC, and that the markers were expressed by EWSR1-ERG-positive EwS. Only little intra-tumoral heterogeneity in immunoreactivity was observed for differential diagnoses. These results indicate that BCL11B and GLG1 may help as specific auxiliary IHC markers in diagnosing EwS in conjunction with CD99, especially if confirmatory molecular diagnostics are not available.
| S-EPMC7139395 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Identification of druggable targets is a prerequisite for developing targeted therapies against Ewing sarcoma. We report the identification of Protein Kinase C Beta (PRKCB) as a protein specifically and highly expressed in Ewing sarcoma as compared to other pediatric cancers. Its transcriptional activation is directly regulated by the EWSR1-FLI1 oncogene. Getting insights in PRKCB activity we show that, together with PRKCA, it is responsible for the phosphorylation of histone H3T6, allowing global maintenance of H3K4 trimethylation on a variety of gene promoters. In the long term, PRKCB RNA interference induces apoptosis in vitro. More importantly, in xenograft mice models, complete impairment of tumor engraftment and even tumor regression were observed upon PRKCB inhibition, highlighting PRKCB as a most valuable therapeutic target. Deciphering PRKCB roles in Ewing sarcoma using expression profiling, we found a strong overlap with genes modulated by EWSR1-FLI1 and an involvement of RPKCB in regulating crucial signaling pathways. Altogether, we show that PRKCB may have two important independent functions and should be considered as highly valuable for understanding Ewing sarcoma biology and as a promising target for new therapeutic approaches in Ewing sarcoma. A673 Ewing cell line was treated for 72 hours by either control siRNA or siRNA directed against PRKCB or EWSR1-FLI1. Total RNAs were extracted and hybridized on HuGene1.1STv1 Affymetrix Arrays. Normalisation was performed using specific Brainarray Enrtez gene CDF file (v14.1).
2012-06-30 | E-GEOD-38392 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Ewing sarcoma is an aggressive bone cancer affecting children and young adults. The main molecular hallmark of Ewing sarcoma are chromosomal translocations that produce chimeric oncogenic transcription factors, the most frequent of which is the aberrant transcription factor EWSR1-FLI1. Because this is the principal oncogenic driver of Ewing sarcoma, its inactivation should be the best therapeutic strategy to block tumor growth. In this study, we genetically inactivated EWSR1-FLI1 using CRISPR-Cas9 technology in order to cause permanent gene inactivation. We found that gene editing at the exon 9 of FLI1 was able to block cell proliferation drastically and induce senescence massively in the well-studied Ewing sarcoma cell line A673. In comparison with an extensively used cellular model of EWSR1-FLI1 knockdown (A673/TR/shEF), genetic inactivation was more effective, particularly in its capability to block cell proliferation. In summary, genetic inactivation of EWSR1-FLI1 in A673 Ewing sarcoma cells blocks cell proliferation and induces a senescence phenotype that could be exploited therapeutically. Although efficient and specific in vivo CRISPR-Cas9 editing still presents many challenges today, our data suggest that complete inactivation of EWSR1-FLI1 at the cell level should be considered a therapeutic approach to develop in the future.
| S-EPMC8345183 | biostudies-literature