Functional Taxonomy of CENPA-Bound Genes in Prostate Cancer

Overexpression of centromeric proteins has been identified in a number of human malignancies, though their functional and mechanistic contributions to disease progression have not been characterized. CENPA, the centromeric histone H3 variant, is the epigenetic mark that determines centromere identity. Here, we demonstrate that CENPA is highly overexpressed in prostate cancer in both tissue and cell lines, and the level of CENPA expression correlates with the stage of disease. Gain-of- and loss-of-function experimentation confirms that CENPA promotes prostate cancer cell line growth. Integrated sequencing studies further reveal a previously unidentified function of CENPA as a transcriptional regulator that modulates expression of critical proliferation, cell-cycle, and centromere/kinetochore genes. Our findings, therefore, suggest a previously undescribed biological function for CENPA, a protein normally thought to be solely and importantly involved in centromere identity. Overall design: Identification of extracentromeric CENPA binding in prostate cancer using ChIP-seq