title: Epigenetic regulation of WTH3 in primary and cultured drug-resistant breast cancer cells.
abstract: Previous studies showed that the WTH3 gene functioned as a negative regulator during multidrug resistance (MDR) development in vitro. To understand whether this gene is also involved in clinical drug resistance, hypermethylation at its promoter region observed in cultured MDR MCF7/AdrR cells was examined in primary drug-resistant breast cancer epithelial cells isolated from effusions of breast cancer patients. The results showed that this event also occurred in drug-resistant breast cancer epithelial cells and a newly induced drug-resistant cell line, MCF7/inR. Interestingly, we found that a CpG (CpG 23) that was close to the TATA-like box was constantly methylated in the WTH3 promoter of drug-resistant breast cancer epithelial and cultured MDR cells. Mutagenic study suggested that this CpG site had a functional effect on promoter activity. We also discovered that MCF7/AdrR cells treated with trichostatin A, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, exhibited higher WTH3, but lower MDR1, expression. A reverse correlation between WTH3 and MDR1 gene expression was also observed in MCF7/AdrR, and its non-MDR parental cell line, MCF7/WT. This result indicated that both DNA methylation and histone deacetylase could act in concert to inhibit WTH3 and consequently stimulate MDR1 expression. This hypothesis was supported by data obtained from introducing the WTH3 transgene into MDR cell lines, which reduced endogenous MDR1 expression. Therefore, our studies suggested that the behavior of WTH3 in primary drug-resistant breast cancer epithelial cells was similar to that in a model system where epigenetic regulation of the WTH3 gene was linked to the MDR phenotype.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11794-5215, USA.
authors.forename: Kegui
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.forename: Vladimir
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Jurukovski
authors.forename: Xue-Ping
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Mark H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.forename: Haopeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D018899:CpG Islands; D019175:DNA Methylation; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology; D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D019450:Genes, MDR / Q000235:genetics; D006655:Histone Deacetylases / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic; D014162:Transfection; D019076:Transgenes; D020691:rab GTP-Binding Proteins
chemical_list: D006655:Histone Deacetylases; D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins; C417211:RAB6C protein, human; D020691:rab GTP-Binding Proteins