Mus musculus epigenomics deciphering of tumor dormancy

Tumor dormancy is a situation of patients in complete remission in which tumor cells may persist for a long time before relapse. This phenomenon is still not well understood mainly due to their scarcity and the main knowledge in this field comes from experimental models. It is therefore crucial to better understand the major mechanisms of tumor dormancy to help therapy efficacy and prevent patients' relapse. In order to unveil genetic, epigenetic, transcriptomic and proteomic signatures specific to tumor dormancy, our study focused on the two models of tumor dormancy based in myeloid leukemia and melanoma our team has developed overtime using cellular vaccination. Full exome sequencing of parental and dormant cell lines was performed. To explore the epigenetic modifications related to tumor dormancy, ChIP sequencing was also performed. By coupling full exome sequencing to epigenomics studies, we identify a signature of activated and repressed genes according to their mutated status. Finally, transcriptome and proteome analysis were performed to identify genes effectively transcribed and expressed. We could highlight general adaptative mechanisms which permit the dormant cells to survive a hostile microenvironment during the residual disease.