HOXB13 epigenome in castration-resistant prostate cancer

Treatment induced-resistance of CRPC is an imminent undesirable outcome in patients. Tissue and lineage-specific super-enhancers (SEs) determine cell fate and plasticity during development and disease respectively. However, the identity and function of CRPC-specific SEs (CSEs) regulated genes is unknown. Herein we report the lysine 13 acetylation of the prostate-enriched transcription factor HOXB13 (acK13-HOXB13) mediated by the histone acetyl transferase (HAT) CBP/p300 as a critical mechanism of CSE establishment. Mechanistically, acK13-HOXB13 establishes the CRPC enhanceosome comprising chromatin remodeling bromo-domain proteins SMARCA2/BAZ2B and the HAT p300/CBP which enable histone and non-histone protein acetylation at CSEs. Such CSEs sprout at tyrosine kinase genes encoding ACK1/TNK2, VEGFA, and ANGPT2/ANGPTL3 to increase pathogenic output in primary human tumors. These tyrosine kinase mediated signaling cascades establish robust networks to conduce growth, survival and androgen-bypass. Consistently, the loss of function acK13-HOXB13 mutants show significant reduction of proliferation, spheroid formation, and xenograft tumor growth that correlates with the high sensitivity to the AR-antagonist Enzalutamide. Targeting HOXB13 acetylation mediated CRPC-SE establishment at critical tyrosine kinase genes could therefore have significant clinical implications in preventing PC recurrence. Genome-wide binding site analysis of HOXB13 in chromatin extracts prepared from prostate cancer cell lines.