CRISPR-Cas9 screen reveals a MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma dependency on EZH2
L Chen, et al.
(2017)
Journal of Clinical Investigation
- There is no summary for this article.
Medical and Health Science
Abstract
Pharmacologically difficult targets, such as MYC transcription factors, represent a major challenge in cancer therapy. For the childhood cancer neuroblastoma, amplification of the oncogene MYCN is associated with high-risk disease and poor prognosis. Here, we deployed genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 screening of MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma and found a preferential dependency on genes encoding the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) components EZH2, EED, and SUZ12. Genetic and pharmacological suppression of EZH2 inhibited neuroblastoma growth in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, compared with neuroblastomas without MYCN amplification, MYCN-amplified neuroblastomas expressed higher levels of EZH2. ChIP analysis showed that MYCN binds at the EZH2 promoter, thereby directly driving expression. Transcriptomic and epigenetic analysis, as well as genetic rescue experiments, revealed that EZH2 represses neuronal differentiation in neuroblastoma in a PRC2-dependent manner. Moreover, MYCN-amplified and high-risk primary tumors from patients with neuroblastoma exhibited strong repression of EZH2-regulated genes. Additionally, overexpression of IGFBP3, a direct EZH2 target, suppressed neuroblastoma growth in vitro and in vivo. We further observed strong synergy between histone deacetylase inhibitors and EZH2 inhibitors. Together, these observations demonstrate that MYCN upregulates EZH2, leading to inactivation of a tumor suppressor program in neuroblastoma, and support testing EZH2 inhibitors in patients with MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma.
Comments are visible to all users.
Login or Register for free to comment on this publication.
Your personal notes related to this publication. These notes are only visible to you, will save automatically, and will be here when you come back.
Login or Register for free to make personal notes.
| Authors: | L Chen, G Alexe, NV Dharia, L Ross, AB Iniguez, AS Conway, EJ Wang, V Veschi, N Lam, J Qi, WC Gustafson, N Nasholm, F Vazquez, BA Weir, GS Cowley, LD Ali, S Pantel, G Jiang, WF Harrington, Y Lee, A Goodale, R Lubonja, JM Krill-burger, RM Meyers, A Tsherniak, DE Root, JE Bradner, TR Golub, CW Roberts, WC Hahn, WA Weiss, CJ Thiele, K Stegmaier |
| Year published: | 2017 |
| DOI: | 10.1172/jci90793 |
| Full-text available: | No |
| Journal: | Journal of Clinical Investigation |
| Publisher: | American Society for Clinical Investigation |
Search Controls
Log in or Register for free to adjust controls.
Adjust how much the below factors influence search score
Boost the overall effect of controls on search score
Citation
Something went wrong trying to cite the current publication. Please try again later.
Share this article
Badges
Downloads
Log in or Register for free to download citations