Chen L, Alexe G, Dharia NV, Ross L, Iniguez AB, Conway AS, Wang EJ, Veschi V, Lam N, Qi J, et al. CRISPR-Cas9 screen reveals a MYCN-amplified neuroblastoma dependency on EZH2. J Clin Invest. 2018;128:446–462.
NOTES
Chen, LiyingAlexe, GabrielaDharia, Neekesh VRoss, LindaIniguez, Amanda BalboniConway, Amy SaurWang, Emily JueVeschi, VeronicaLam, NorrisQi, JunGustafson, W ClayNasholm, NicoleVazquez, FranciscaWeir, Barbara ACowley, Glenn SAli, Levi DPantel, SashaJiang, GuozhiHarrington, William FLee, YenaraeGoodale, AmyLubonja, RakelaKrill-Burger, John MMeyers, Robin MTsherniak, AviadRoot, David EBradner, James EGolub, Todd RRoberts, Charles WmHahn, William CWeiss, William AThiele, Carol JStegmaier, KimberlyengT32 CA136432/CA/NCI NIH HHS/U01 CA199253/CA/NCI NIH HHS/R01 NS088355/NS/NINDS NIH HHS/U01 CA176058/CA/NCI NIH HHS/P01 CA142106/CA/NCI NIH HHS/Research Support, N.I.H., ExtramuralResearch Support, N.I.H., IntramuralResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tJ Clin Invest. 2018 Jan 2;128(1):446-462. doi: 10.1172/JCI90793. Epub 2017 Dec 4.
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.
Last updated on 02/17/2021