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66
Nucleosome dynamics define transcriptional enhancers
- Nat. Genet
, 2010
"... Chromatin plays a central role in eukaryotic gene regulation. We have performed genome-wide mapping of epigenetically-marked nucleosomes to determine their position both near transcription start sites and at distal regulatory elements including enhancers. In prostate cancer cells where androgen rece ..."
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Chromatin plays a central role in eukaryotic gene regulation. We have performed genome-wide mapping of epigenetically-marked nucleosomes to determine their position both near transcription start sites and at distal regulatory elements including enhancers. In prostate cancer cells where androgen receptor (AR) binds primarily to enhancers, we found that androgen treatment dismisses a central nucleosome present over AR binding sites that is flanked by a pair of marked nucleosomes. A novel quantitative model built on the behavior of such nucleosome pairs correctly identified regions bound by the regulators of the immediate androgen response including AR and FoxA1. More importantly this model also correctly predicted novel binding sites for other transcription factors present following prolonged androgen stimulation including Oct1 and NKX3.1. Thus quantitative modeling of enhancer structure provides a powerful predictive method to infer the identity of transcription factors involved in cellular responses to specific stimuli. Transcription in eukaryotes is regulated by transcription factors that associate with the genome in a cell-type and condition-specific manner. Chromatin organization forms part of the basis for this cell-type specificity by allowing or denying transcription factor (TF) access
Comprehensive functional annotation of 77 prostate cancer risk loci
- PLoS Genet
, 2014
"... Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revolutionized the field of cancer genetics, but the causal links between increased genetic risk and onset/progression of disease processes remain to be identified. Here we report the first step in such an endeavor for prostate cancer. We provide a compreh ..."
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Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revolutionized the field of cancer genetics, but the causal links between increased genetic risk and onset/progression of disease processes remain to be identified. Here we report the first step in such an endeavor for prostate cancer. We provide a comprehensive annotation of the 77 known risk loci, based upon highly correlated variants in biologically relevant chromatin annotations — we identified 727 such potentially functional SNPs. We also provide a detailed account of possible protein disruption, microRNA target sequence disruption and regulatory
Androgen receptor promotes ligand-independent prostate cancer progression through c-Myc upregulation. PLoS One
, 2013
"... The androgen receptor (AR) is the principal therapeutic target in prostate cancer. For the past 70 years, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been the major therapeutic focus. However, some patients do not benefit, and those tumors that do initially respond to ADT eventually progress. One recentl ..."
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The androgen receptor (AR) is the principal therapeutic target in prostate cancer. For the past 70 years, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been the major therapeutic focus. However, some patients do not benefit, and those tumors that do initially respond to ADT eventually progress. One recently described mechanism of such an effect is growth and survival-promoting effects of the AR that are exerted independently of the AR ligands, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone. However, specific ligand-independent AR target genes that account for this effect were not well characterized. We show here that c-Myc, which is a key mediator of ligand-independent prostate cancer growth, is a key ligand-independent AR target gene. Using microarray analysis, we found that c-Myc and AR expression levels strongly correlated with each other in tumors from patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) progressing despite ADT. We confirmed that AR directly regulates c-Myc transcription in a ligand-independent manner, that AR and c-Myc suppression reduces ligand-independent prostate cancer cell growth, and that ectopic expression of c-Myc attenuates the anti-growth effects of AR suppression. Importantly, treatment with the bromodomain inhibitor JQ1 suppressed c-Myc function and suppressed ligand-independent prostate cancer cell survival. Our results define a new link between two critical proteins in prostate cancer – AR and c-Myc – and demonstrate the potential of AR and c-Myc-directed therapies to improve
www.mdpi.com/journal/ijms Posttranslational Modification of the Androgen Receptor in Prostate Cancer
, 2013
"... Abstract: The androgen receptor (AR) is important in the development of the prostate by regulating transcription, cellular proliferation, and apoptosis. AR undergoes posttranslational modifications that alter its transcription activity, translocation to the nucleus and stability. The posttranslation ..."
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Abstract: The androgen receptor (AR) is important in the development of the prostate by regulating transcription, cellular proliferation, and apoptosis. AR undergoes posttranslational modifications that alter its transcription activity, translocation to the nucleus and stability. The posttranslational modifications that regulate these events are of utmost importance to understand the functional role of AR and its activity. The majority of these modifications occur in the activation function-1 (AF1) region of the AR, which contains the transcriptional activation unit 1 (TAU1) and 5 (TAU5). Identification of the modifications that occur to these regions may increase our understanding of AR activation in prostate cancer and the role of AR in the progression from androgen-dependent to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Most of the posttranslational modifications identified to date have been determined using the full-length AR in androgen dependent cells. Further investigations into the role of posttranslational modifications in androgen-independent activation of full-length AR and constitutively active splicing variants are warranted, findings from which may provide new therapeutic options for CRPC.
Molecular pathways and targets in prostate cancer. Oncotarget 5(17):7217–7259
, 2014
"... This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Prostate cancer co-opts a unique set of cellular pathways in its ..."
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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Prostate cancer co-opts a unique set of cellular pathways in its initiation and progression. The heterogeneity of prostate cancers is evident at earlier stages, and has led to rigorous efforts to stratify the localized prostate cancers, so that progression to advanced stages could be predicted based upon salient features of the early disease. The deregulated androgen receptor signaling is undeniably most important in the progression of the majority of prostate tumors. It is perhaps because of the primacy of the androgen receptor governed transcriptional program in prostate epithelium cells that once this program is corrupted, the consequences of the ensuing changes in activity are pleotropic and could contribute to malignancy in multiple ways. Following localized surgical and radiation therapies, 20-40 % of patients will relapse and progress, and will be treated with androgen deprivation therapies. The successful development of the new agents that inhibit androgen signaling has changed the progression free survival in hormone resistant disease, but this has not changed the almost ubiquitous development of truly resistant phenotypes in advanced prostate cancer. This review summarizes the current understanding of the molecular pathways involved in localized and metastatic prostate cancer, with an emphasis on the clinical implications of the new knowledge.
ETV1 directs androgen metabolism and confers aggressive prostate cancer in targeted mice and patients
, 2013
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Androgen Receptor as a Driver of Therapeutic Resistance in Advanced Prostate Cancer
"... licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. Received: 2014.01.24; Accepted: 2014.03.01; Published: 2014.06.01 The role of the androgen receptor (AR) signaling axis in the progression of pro ..."
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licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. Received: 2014.01.24; Accepted: 2014.03.01; Published: 2014.06.01 The role of the androgen receptor (AR) signaling axis in the progression of prostate cancer is a cornerstone to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms causing castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). Resistance of advanced prostate cancer to available treatment options makes it a clinical challenge that results in approximately 30,000 deaths of American men every year. Since the historic discovery by Dr. Huggins more than 70 years ago, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) has been the principal treatment for advanced prostate cancer. Initially, ADT induces apoptosis of androgen-dependent prostate cancer epithelial cells and regression of androgen-dependent tumors. However, the majority of patients with advanced prostate cancer progress and become refractory to ADT due to emergence of androgen-independent prostate cancer cells driven by aberrant AR activation. Microtubule-targeting agents such as taxanes, docetaxel and paclitaxel, have enjoyed success in the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer; although new, recently designed mitosis-specific agents, such as the polo-kinase and kinesin-inhibitors,
Cooperativity and equilibrium with FOXA1 define the androgen receptor transcriptional program
- Nat. Commun
"... The pioneering factor FOXA1 opens chromatin to facilitate androgen receptor (AR) binding to prostate-specific genes. How FOXA1 controls the AR cistrome, however, is incompletely understood. Here we show that AR directly binds chromatin through the androgen-response elements (AREs). FOXA1 is not requ ..."
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The pioneering factor FOXA1 opens chromatin to facilitate androgen receptor (AR) binding to prostate-specific genes. How FOXA1 controls the AR cistrome, however, is incompletely understood. Here we show that AR directly binds chromatin through the androgen-response elements (AREs). FOXA1 is not required for AR-chromatin interaction, but instrumental in recruiting AR to low-affinity half-AREs by opening local chromatin around adjacent FKHD sites. Too much FOXA1 creates excessive open chromatin regions, which serve as reservoirs that retain AR via abundant half-AREs, thereby reducing its availability for specific sites. FOXA1 down-regulation, by contrast, relinquishes AR to permissively bind AREs across the genome, resulting in substantial AR binding events and AR-target gene expression even in the absence of androgen. Taken together, our data illustrate the mechanistic details by which cooperativity and equilibrium with FOXA1 define AR cistrome and reveal a previously unknown function of FOXA1 in inhibiting AR signaling and castration-resistant prostate cancer growth.
The Impact of Point Mutations in the Human Androgen Receptor: Classification of Mutations on the Basis of Transcriptional Activity
, 2011
"... Androgen receptor mediated signaling drives prostate cancer cell growth and survival. Mutations within the receptor occur infrequently in prostate cancer prior to hormonal therapy but become prevalent in incurable androgen independent and metastatic tumors. Despite the determining role played by the ..."
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Androgen receptor mediated signaling drives prostate cancer cell growth and survival. Mutations within the receptor occur infrequently in prostate cancer prior to hormonal therapy but become prevalent in incurable androgen independent and metastatic tumors. Despite the determining role played by the androgen receptor in all stages of prostate cancer progression, there is a conspicuous dearth of comparable data on the consequences of mutations. In order to remedy this omission, we have combined an expansive study of forty five mutations which are predominantly associated with high Gleason scores and metastatic tumors, and span the entire length of the receptor, with a literature review of the mutations under investigation. We report the discovery of a novel prevalent class of androgen receptor mutation that possesses loss of function at low levels of androgen yet transforms to a gain of function at physiological levels. Importantly, mutations introducing constitutive gain of function are uncommon, with the majority of mutations leading to either loss of function or no significant change from wild-type activity. Therefore, the widely accepted supposition that androgen receptor mutations in prostate cancer result in gain of function is appealing, but mistaken. In addition, the transcriptional outcome of some mutations is dependent upon the androgen receptor responsive element. We discuss the consequences of these findings
Epidaurus: aggregation and integration analysis of prostate cancer epigenome
, 2014
"... Integrative analyses of epigenetic data promise a deeper understanding of the epigenome. Epidaurus is a bioinformatics tool used to effectively reveal inter-dataset relevance and differences through data aggregation, integration and visualization. In this study, we demonstrated the utility of Epidau ..."
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Integrative analyses of epigenetic data promise a deeper understanding of the epigenome. Epidaurus is a bioinformatics tool used to effectively reveal inter-dataset relevance and differences through data aggregation, integration and visualization. In this study, we demonstrated the utility of Epidaurus in validating hypotheses and generating novel biologi-cal insights. In particular, we described the use of Ep-idaurus to (i) integrate epigenetic data from prostate cancer cell lines to validate the activation function of EZH2 in castration-resistant prostate cancer and to (ii) study the mechanism of androgen receptor (AR) binding deregulation induced by the knockdown of FOXA1. We found that EZH2’s noncanonical activa-tion function was reaffirmed by its association with active histone markers and the lack of association with repressive markers. More importantly, we re-vealed that the binding of AR was selectively re-programed to promoter regions, leading to the up-regulation of hundreds of cancer-associated genes including EGFR. The prebuilt epigenetic dataset from commonly used cell lines (LNCaP, VCaP, LNCaP-Abl, MCF7, GM12878, K562, HeLa-S3, A549, HePG2) makes Epidaurus a useful online resource for epige-netic research. As standalone software, Epidaurus is specifically designed to process user customized datasets with both efficiency and convenience.
