Abstract 4900: MAGE-A11 expression in castration-recurrent prostate cancer: association with a global epigenetic defect

Abstract

Abstract Despite the initial clinical response to androgen deprivation therapy, most prostate cancer patients subsequently develop castration-recurrent disease. Elucidation of the mechanisms driving this process is expected to lead to improved strategies to prevent and treat advanced prostate cancer. Epigenetic alterations, including DNA hypomethylation, play a key role in human cancer development. DNA hypomethylation is thought to promote oncogenesis in part by driving oncogene expression, but its potential role in castration-recurrent prostate cancer is unknown. Melanoma Antigen A-11 (MAGE-A11) is a cancer germline (CG) antigen that stabilizes the androgen receptor (AR), facilitates AR association with co-activators, and promotes AR transcriptional activity; thus it appears to play an oncogenic role in castration-recurrent disease. We have recently reported that MAGE-A11 is over-expressed in prostate cancer cell lines, prostate cancer xenografts, and human prostate cancer tissues; in each setting MAGE-A11 overexpression is associated with DNA hypomethylation at the MAGE-A11 promoter CpG island (Karpf et al., Molecular Cancer Research 7; 523-535, 2009). Critically, MAGE-A11 expression and promoter hypomethylation correlate with castration-recurrent cancer growth, both in the CWR-22 xenograft model and in primary human prostate cancer tissues. In the current study we examined whether MAGE-A11 expression and hypomethylation in prostate cancer is an isolated molecular event, or alternatively whether it coincides with a global DNA hypomethylation defect. To test this, we analyzed the global DNA methylation status of prostate cancer cell lines, CWR-22 cancer xenografts, and primary prostate cancer, in which MAGE-A11 expression and methylation was also characterized. We assessed global DNA methylation by measuring total genomic 5-methyl-2′-deoxycytidine (5mdC), LINE-1 repetitive DNA element methylation, and the expression and methylation of several other CG antigen genes, including MAGE-A1, NY-ESO-1, XAGE-1, and BORIS/CTCFL. Taken together, our data provide evidence for a global DNA hypomethylation phenotype in castration-recurrent prostate cancers that express MAGE-A11. Ongoing studies are using HpaII tiny fragment enrichment by ligation-mediated PCR (HELP assay) to define the epigenome of castration-recurrent prostate cancer displaying MAGE-A11 expression. In summary, our data provide evidence that global DNA hypomethylation contributes to castration-recurrent prostate cancer, at least in part by promoting MAGE-A11 expression. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4900.