BioProject

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a highly aggressive brain tumour that is located in the pons and primarily affects children. More...

Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a highly aggressive brain tumour that is located in the pons and primarily affects children. Whole-exome sequencing studies have identified recurrent driver mutations in H3F3A (H3.3) and HIST1H3B (H3.1), leading to the expression of histone H3 in which lysine 27 is substituted with methionine (H3K27M) in nearly 80% of DIPGs1-5. H3K27M has been shown to inhibit Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) activity by binding to its catalytic subunit EZH2, and although DIPGs with H3K27M mutation show global loss of H3 with trimethylated lysine 27 (H3K27me3), several genes retain H3K27me3 (Refs. 1-8). Here, we describe a mouse DIPG model in which H3K27M potentiates tumourigenesis. Using this model and primary patient-derived DIPG cell lines, we show that H3K27M expressing tumours require PRC2 for proliferation. Furthermore, we demonstrate that small molecule EZH2 inhibitors abolish tumour cell growth through a mechanism that is dependent on the induction of the tumour suppressor protein p16INK4A. Genome-wide enrichment analyses show that the genes that retain H3K27me3 in H3K27M cells are strong polycomb targets and are highly enriched for H3K27me3/PRC2/PRC1 in cells prior to H3K27M expression. Furthermore, we find a highly significant overlap between genes that retain H3K27me3 in the mouse DIPG model and in human primary DIPGs expressing H3K27M. Taken together, these results show that residual PRC2 activity is required for the proliferation of H3K27M positive DIPGs, and inhibition of EZH2 is as a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of these tumours. Overall design: RNA-seq experiments in mouse DIPG cells expressing wild-type or K27M mutant histone H3.3 in presence or absence of Ezh2 inhibitor. Less...