Epigenetic Maintenance of Stemness and Malignancy in Peripheral Neuroectodermal Tumors by EZH2

Chromatin modifications are increasingly recognized as a key mechanism in cancer. The histone methyl-transferase Enhancer of Zeste, Drosophila, Homolog 2 (EZH2) is the enzymatic subunit of the polycomb PRC2 complex and methylates histone H3K27, thereby, mediating gene silencing. Down-regulation of EZH2 by RNA interference in ET suppressed oncogenic transformation, tumor development and metastasis in a respective mouse model. Further microarray analysis of EZH2 knock down, or functionally linked HDAC-inhibitor treatment revealed an undifferentiated reversible phenotype in ET maintained by EZH2. EZH2 suppression resulted in a generalized loss of H3K27me3 as well as an increase in H3 acetylation levels. In addition, ChIP-Chip assays for H3K27me3 identified genes that had specifically lost H3K27me3 upon EZH2 silencing. These findings suggested that stemness features are preserved via epigenetic mechanisms. Taken together, the genetic EWS-Fli1 translocation is intimately linked to global and gene specific epigenetic alterations in ET biology. EZH2 mediates neuroectodermal and endothelial embryonal tumor stem cell growth and metastasic spread induced by a translocation derived chimeric transcription factor. Keywords: PNET, Ewing Tumor Epigenetic regulation A673 transiently transfected with siRNA-EZH2 and siRNA-scrambled were harvested and Chromatin-IPs of H3K27me3 or H3 followed by microarray hybridisation were carried out. For detailed procedures see Burdach et al. Epigenetic Maintenance of Stemness and Malignancy in Peripheral Neuroectodermal Tumors by EZH2.