Abstract
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy in women worldwide. It is well established that the complexity of carcinogenesis involves profound epigenetic deregulations that contribute to the tumorigenesis process. Deregulated H3 and H4 acetylated histone marks are amongst those alterations. Sirtuin-1 (SIRT1) is a class-III histone deacetylase deeply involved in apoptosis, genomic stability, gene expression regulation and breast tumorigenesis. However, the underlying molecular mechanism by which SIRT1 regulates H3 and H4 acetylated marks, and consequently cancer-related gene expression in breast cancer, remains uncharacterized. In this study, we elucidated SIRT1 epigenetic role and analyzed the link between the latter and histones H3 and H4 epigenetic marks in all 5 molecular subtypes of breast cancer. Using a cohort of 135 human breast tumors and their matched normal tissues, as well as 5 human-derived cell lines, we identified H3k4ac as a new prime target of SIRT1 in breast cancer. We also uncovered an inverse correlation between SIRT1 and the 3 epigenetic marks H3k4ac, H3k9ac and H4k16ac expression patterns. We showed that SIRT1 modulates the acetylation patterns of histones H3 and H4 in breast cancer. Moreover, SIRT1 regulates its H3 acetylated targets in a subtype-specific manner. Furthermore, SIRT1 siRNA-mediated knockdown increases histone acetylation levels at 6 breast cancer-related gene promoters: AR, BRCA1, ERS1, ERS2, EZH2 and EP300. In summary, this report characterizes for the first time the epigenetic behavior of SIRT1 in human breast carcinoma. These novel findings point to a potential use of SIRT1 as an epigenetic therapeutic target in breast cancer.
Highlights
Breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death among females in less developed countries, and second leading cause of cancer death in more developed countries after lung cancer [1]
The results showed a great discrepancy of SIRT1-H3k4 acetylated mark (H3k4ac)/H3k9ac colocalization profiles that seem to differ depending www.oncotarget.com on molecular subtype, targeted gene type and studied epi-mark, suggesting that SIRT1- epigenetic regulation depends on multiple factors in different molecular subtypes
We identified a new prime target of SIRT1 in breast cancer, the acetylated H3k4 histone mark (H3k4ac)
Summary
Breast cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death among females in less developed countries, and second leading cause of cancer death in more developed countries after lung cancer [1]. The occurrence of breast cancer is a complex, multifactorial process that is regulated by a number of different genes at different tumor formation stages [2]. Breast cancer is characterized by its molecular and clinical heterogeneity with variations in gene expression profiles among women [3]. The St. Gallen molecular classification divides breast tumors into 5 distinct subtypes in ascending order of tumor aggressiveness [4]. Luminal A, luminal B (HER2-) and luminal B (HER2+), these 3 subtypes are included in the Hormone Receptor-positive Breast Cancer (HRBC). Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), known as basal-like, which is characterized as very aggressive compared to the other molecular subtypes [5]. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), known as basal-like, which is characterized as very aggressive compared to the other molecular subtypes [5]. 85 to 90%
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