Abstract 4778: HP1-mediated spatiotemporal control of estrogen-responsive transcription in breast cancer cells

Recruitment of transcriptional machinery to target promoters for aberrant gene expression has been well studied, but underlying control directed by distant-acting enhancers remains unclear in cancer development. Our previous study demonstrated that distant estrogen response elements (DEREs) located on chromosome 20q13 were frequently amplified (50∼60 copies) and translocated to other chromosomes in ERα-positive breast cancer cells. In this study, we used three-dimensional interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization to decipher spatiotemporal gathering of multiple DEREs in the nucleus. Upon estrogen stimulation, the majority of 20q13 DEREs were mobilized to form regulatory depots for synchronized regulation of target loci. A chromosome conformation capture assay coupled with chromatin immunoprecipitation further uncovered that ERα-bound regulatory depots are tethered to heterochromatin protein 1 (HP1) for coordinated chromatin movement and subsequent facilitation of histone modifications of target loci, resulting in transcription repression. Neutralizing HP1 function dissembled these regulatory depots and reversed this transcription inactivation of candidate tumor-suppressor genes. Deletion of amplified DEREs using the CRISPR/Cas9 genomic-editing system profoundly altered transcriptional profiles of JAK/STAT signaling networks, leading to proliferation inhibition of cancer cells with beneficial outcome of breast cancers. These findings reveal a formerly uncharacterized feature of oncogenic amplicons that multiple copies of the amplicon congregate as transcriptional unions in the nucleus for synchronous regulation of function-related loci in tumorigenesis. Disruption of their assembly can be a new strategy for treating breast cancers and other malignancies. Citation Format: Pei-Yin Hsu, Hang-Kai Hsu, Victor X. Jin, Zelton D. Sharp, Tim H.-M. Huang. HP1-mediated spatiotemporal control of estrogen-responsive transcription in breast cancer cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4778. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4778