Cooperation between SMYD3 and PC4 drives a distinct transcriptional program in cancer cells.

Jin-Man Kim,Woojin An,Vasu Punj,Haley Tucker,Judd C Rice,Kyunghwan Kim,Thomas Schmidt,Tobias S Ulmer

doi:10.1093/nar/gkv874

Abstract

SET and MYND domain containing protein 3 (SMYD3) is a histone methyltransferase, which has been implicated in cell growth and cancer pathogenesis. Increasing evidence suggests that SMYD3 can influence distinct oncogenic processes by acting as a gene-specific transcriptional regulator. However, the mechanistic aspects of SMYD3 transactivation and whether SMYD3 acts in concert with other transcription modulators remain unclear. Here, we show that SMYD3 interacts with the human positive coactivator 4 (PC4) and that such interaction potentiates a group of genes whose expression is linked to cell proliferation and invasion. SMYD3 cooperates functionally with PC4, because PC4 depletion results in the loss of SMYD3-mediated H3K4me3 and target gene expression. Individual depletion of SMYD3 and PC4 diminishes the recruitment of both SMYD3 and PC4, indicating that SMYD3 and PC4 localize at target genes in a mutually dependent manner. Artificial tethering of a SMYD3 mutant incapable of binding to its cognate elements and interacting with PC4 to target genes is sufficient for achieving an active transcriptional state in SMYD3-deficient cells. These observations suggest that PC4 contributes to SMYD3-mediated transactivation primarily by stabilizing SMYD3 occupancy at target genes. Together, these studies define expanded roles for SMYD3 and PC4 in gene regulation and provide an unprecedented documentation of their cooperative functions in stimulating oncogenic transcription.

Highlights

SET and MYND domain-containing proteins (SMYD) are a special class of protein lysine methyltransferases involved in methylation of histones and non-histone proteins [1,2,3]
It was important that SET and MYND domain containing protein 3 (SMYD3) is depleted for prolonged periods, as this allows the study of progressive alterations of cell proliferation and invasion under identical conditions
MTT assays over a period of 4 days reproducibly showed that the bladder and colon cancer cells proliferate much more slowly following the depletion of endogenous SMYD3 (Supplementary Figure S1C)

Summary

Introduction

SET and MYND domain-containing proteins (SMYD) are a special class of protein lysine methyltransferases involved in methylation of histones and non-histone proteins [1,2,3]. SMYD3 has been regarded as an important factor in cancer, based on the fact that high level expression of SMYD3 has cell proliferative effects and up-regulates a number of genes involved in cell growth and proliferation [1,2,10,11,12]. Further support for such an oncogenic function of SMYD3 is provided by studies demonstrating that suppression of SMYD3 expression by RNAi or other inhibitory reagents induces apoptosis and inhibits cell proliferation [2,13,14]

Methods

Results

Conclusion