Evolution of Rapid Clonal Dynamics and Non-Cross-Resistance in Response to Alternating Targeted Therapy and Chemotherapy in BRAF-V600E-Mutant Colon Cancer.

Purpose: Combined BRAF, MEK, and EGFR inhibition can induce clinical responses in BRAF-V600E-mutant colon cancer, but rapid resistance often occurs.

Methods: We use serial monitoring of circulating tumor DNA cell-free plasma DNA (cfDNA) in a patient case study in addition to organoids derived from mouse models of BRAF-V600E-mutant intestinal cancer, which emulated the patient's mutational profile to assess drug treatment efficacy.

Results: We demonstrate dynamic evolution of resistance to combined EGFR/BRAF/MEK inhibition in a pediatric patient with metastatic BRAF-V600E-mutant, mismatch repair-stable colon cancer.

Distinct functions of EHMT1 and EHMT2 in cancer chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

EHTM1 (GLP) and EHMT2 (G9a) are closely related protein lysine methyltransferases often thought to function together as a heterodimer to methylate histone H3 and non-histone substrates in diverse cellular processes including transcriptional regulation, genome methylation, and DNA repair. Here we show that EHMT1/2 inhibitors cause ATM-mediated slowdown of replication fork progression, accumulation of single-stranded replication gaps, emergence of cytosolic DNA, and increased expression of STING. EHMT1/2 inhibition strongly potentiates the efficacy of alkylating chemotherapy and anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in mouse models of tripe negative breast cancer.

Protein-lysine methyltransferases G9a and GLP1 promote responses to DNA damage.

Upon induction of DNA breaks, ATM activation leads to a cascade of local chromatin modifications that promote efficient recruitment of DNA repair proteins. Errors in this DNA repair pathway lead to genomic instability and cancer predisposition. Here, we show that the protein lysine methyltransferase G9a (also known as EHMT2) and GLP1 (also known as EHMT1) are critical components of the DNA repair pathway.

The DNA repair function of CUX1 contributes to radioresistance.

Ionizing radiation generates a broad spectrum of oxidative DNA lesions, including oxidized base products, abasic sites, single-strand breaks and double-strand breaks. The CUX1 protein was recently shown to function as an auxiliary factor that stimulates enzymatic activities of OGG1 through its CUT domains. In the present study, we investigated the requirement for CUX1 and OGG1 in the resistance to radiation.

A Novel Role of Chromodomain Protein CBX8 in DNA Damage Response.

Induction of DNA damage induces a dynamic repair process involving DNA repair factors and epigenetic regulators. Chromatin alterations must occur for DNA repair factors to gain access to DNA lesions and restore original chromatin configuration to preserve the gene expression profile. We characterize the novel role of CBX8, a chromodomain-containing protein with established roles in epigenetic regulation in DNA damage response.

Tripartite Motif-containing 33 (TRIM33) protein functions in the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP)-dependent DNA damage response through interaction with Amplified in Liver Cancer 1 (ALC1) protein.

Activation of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) near sites of DNA breaks facilitates recruitment of DNA repair proteins and promotes chromatin relaxation in part through the action of chromatin-remodeling enzyme Amplified in Liver Cancer 1 (ALC1). Through proteomic analysis we find that ALC1 interacts after DNA damage with Tripartite Motif-containing 33 (TRIM33), a multifunctional protein implicated in transcriptional regulation, TGF-β signaling, and tumorigenesis. We demonstrate that TRIM33 is dynamically recruited to DNA damage sites in a PARP1- and ALC1-dependent manner.

Akt-mediated phosphorylation of Bmi1 modulates its oncogenic potential, E3 ligase activity, and DNA damage repair activity in mouse prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is a major lethal malignancy in men, but the molecular events and their interplay underlying prostate carcinogenesis remain poorly understood. Epigenetic events and the upregulation of polycomb group silencing proteins including Bmi1 have been described to occur during PCa progression. Here, we found that conditional overexpression of Bmi1 in mice induced prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, and elicited invasive adenocarcinoma when combined with PTEN haploinsufficiency.

Identification of the YES1 Kinase as a Therapeutic Target in Basal-Like Breast Cancers.

Normal cellular behavior can be described as a complex, regulated network of interaction between genes and proteins. Targeted cancer therapies aim to neutralize specific proteins that are necessary for the cancer cell to remain viable in vivo. Ideally, the proteins targeted should be such that their downregulation has a major impact on the survival/fitness of the tumor cells and, at the same time, has a smaller effect on normal cells.

BMI1 is recruited to DNA breaks and contributes to DNA damage-induced H2A ubiquitination and repair.

DNA damage activates signaling pathways that lead to modification of local chromatin and recruitment of DNA repair proteins. Multiple DNA repair proteins having ubiquitin ligase activity are recruited to sites of DNA damage, where they ubiquitinate histones and other substrates. This DNA damage-induced histone ubiquitination is thought to play a critical role in mediating the DNA damage response.

Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation regulates CTCF-dependent chromatin insulation.

Chromatin insulators demarcate expression domains by blocking the cis effects of enhancers or silencers in a position-dependent manner. We show that the chromatin insulator protein CTCF carries a post-translational modification: poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis showed that a poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation mark, which exclusively segregates with the maternal allele of the insulator domain in the H19 imprinting control region, requires the bases that are essential for interaction with CTCF.

The binding sites for the chromatin insulator protein CTCF map to DNA methylation-free domains genome-wide.

All known vertebrate chromatin insulators interact with the highly conserved, multivalent 11-zinc finger nuclear factor CTCF to demarcate expression domains by blocking enhancer or silencer signals in a position-dependent manner. Recent observations document that the properties of CTCF include reading and propagating the epigenetic state of the differentially methylated H19 imprinting control region. To assess whether these findings may reflect a universal role for CTCF targets, we identified more than 200 new CTCF target sites by generating DNA microarrays of clones derived from chromatin-immunopurified (ChIP) DNA followed by ChIP-on-chip hybridization analysis.

Multiple cis elements within the Igf2/H19 insulator domain organize a distance-dependent silencer. A cautionary note.

The 5'-flank of the H19 gene harbors a differentially methylated imprinting control region that represses the maternally derived Igf2 and paternally derived H19 alleles. Here we show that the H19 imprinting control region (ICR) is a potent silencer when positioned in a promoter-proximal position. The silencing effect is not alleviated by trichostatin A treatment, suggesting that it does not involve histone deacetylase functions.