Tumor suppressors RBL1 and PTEN are epigenetically silenced in IPF mesenchymal progenitor cells by a CD44/Brg1/PRMT5 regulatory complex.

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The idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) lung contains mesenchymal progenitor cells (MPCs) that display durable activation of oncogenic signaling and cell-autonomous fibrogenicity in vivo. Prior work identified a CD44/Brg1/PRMT5 nuclear regulatory module in IPF MPCs that increased the expression of genes positively regulating pluripotency and self-renewal. Left unanswered is how IPF MPCs evade negative regulation of self-renewal. Here we sought to identify mechanisms disabling negative regulation of self-renewal in IPF MPCs. We demonstrate that expression of the tumor suppressor genes rbl1 and pten is decreased in IPF MPCs. The mechanism involves the CD44-facilitated association of the chromatin remodeler Brg1 with the histone-modifying methyltransferase PRMT5. Brg1 enhances chromatin accessibility leading to PRMT5-mediated methylation of H3R8 and H4R3 on the rbl1 and pten genes, repressing their expression. Genetic knockdown or pharmacological inhibition of either Brg1 or PRMT5 restored RBL1 and PTEN expression reduced IPF MPC self-renewal in vitro and inhibited IPF MPC-mediated pulmonary fibrosis in vivo. Our studies indicate that the CD44/Brg1/PRMT5 regulatory module not only functions to activate positive regulators of pluripotency and self-renewal but also functions to repress tumor suppressor genes rbl1 and pten. This confers IPF MPCs with the cancer-like property of cell-autonomous self-renewal providing a molecular mechanism for relentless fibrosis progression in IPF.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Here we demonstrate that a CD44/Brg1/PRMT5 epigenetic regulatory module represses the tumor suppressor genes RBL1 and PTEN in IPF mesenchymal progenitor cells, thereby promoting their self-renewal and maintenance of a critical pool of fibrogenic mesenchymal progenitor cells.