Abstract PR01: Developmental reprogramming via Hedgehog pathway activation in nonmyogenic endothelial progenitors drives fusion-negative rhabdomyosarcoma

Abstract

Abstract Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children. Despite aggressive chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery, clinical outcomes for RMS have not improved for three decades, emphasizing the need to uncover the molecular underpinnings of the disease. RMS has been presumed to originate from derailed muscle progenitors based on the histologic appearance and gene expression pattern of the tumors, resembling embryonic developing skeletal muscle. However, an origin restricted to skeletal muscle does not explain RMS occurring in tissues devoid of skeletal muscle such as the prostate, bladder, salivary gland, biliary tree, and omentum. Previously, we described that activation of Sonic Hedgehog signaling through expression of a conditional, constitutively active Smoothened allele, SmoM2, under control of a presumed adipocyte-restricted adipose protein 2 (aP2)-Cre recombinase transgene in mice, gives rise to aggressive skeletal muscle tumors that display the histologic and molecular characteristics of human embryonal RMS (ERMS). With the short latency and anatomically restricted tumor location in the neck, we sought to leverage this model to explore the cell of origin of ERMS. Lineage tracing experiments identified aP2-Cre labeled cells are distinctly nonmyogenic and were identified as endothelial cells found in the interstitium between muscle fibers. We illustrate that aP2-Cre is not expressed in the quiescent or activated muscle stem cells or satellite cells. Expression of oncogenic SmoM2 with aP2-Cre results in proliferation and expansion of the aP2-Cre labeled muscle interstitial endothelial cells and myogenic transdifferentiation resulting in ERMS. Activation of the hedgehog pathway in aP2-Cre labeled endothelial progenitors results in expression of skeletal muscle specification factors specific in the head and neck development, including TBX1, PITX2, TCF21, and MSC. We illustrate that endothelium and skeletal muscle within the head and neck arise from KDR (VEFGR2)-expressing progenitors. Hedgehog pathway activation in committed KDR+ endothelial progenitors results in Tbx1 expression and subsequent MYOD1 expression driving a partially myogenic program characteristic of ERMS. Our work identifies reprogramming cell fate as a mechanism of transformation in pediatric sarcoma and illustrates that it is dangerous to assume the cell of origin from the characteristics of the tumor cell. Citation Format: Catherine J. Drummond, Kathrine E. Gadek, Madeline Bush, Matthew R. Garcia, Mark E. Hatley. Developmental reprogramming via Hedgehog pathway activation in nonmyogenic endothelial progenitors drives fusion-negative rhabdomyosarcoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on the Evolving Landscape of Cancer Modeling; 2020 Mar 2-5; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2020;80(11 Suppl):Abstract nr PR01.