title: Epigenetic modulation of cancer-germline antigen gene expression in tumorigenic human mesenchymal stem cells: implications for cancer therapy.
abstract: Cancer-germline antigens are promising targets for cancer immunotherapy, but whether such therapies will also eliminate the primary tumor stem cell population remains undetermined. We previously showed that long-term cultures of telomerized adult human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells can spontaneously evolve into tumor-initiating, mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC-TERT20), which have characteristics of clinical sarcoma cells. In this study, we used the hMSC-TERT20 tumor stem cell model to investigate the potential of cancer-germline antigens to serve as tumor stem cell targets. We found that tumorigenic transformation of hMSC-TERT20 cells induced the expression of members of several cancer-germline antigen gene families (ie, GAGE, MAGE-A, and XAGE-1), with promoter hypomethylation and histone acetylation of the corresponding genes. Both in vitro cultures and tumor xenografts derived from tumorigenic hMSC-TERT20 single cell subclones exhibited heterogeneous expression of both GAGE and MAGE-A proteins, and similar patterns of expression were observed in clinical sarcomas. Importantly, histone deacetylase and DNA methyltransferase inhibitors were able to induce more ubiquitous expression levels of cancer-germline antigens in hMSC-TERT20 cells, while their expression levels in primary human mesenchymal stem cells remained unaffected. The expression pattern of cancer-germline antigens in tumorigenic mesenchymal stem cells and sarcomas, plus their susceptibility to enhancement by epigenetic modulators, makes them promising targets for immunotherapeutic approaches to cancer treatment.
authors.affiliation: Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Southern Denmark, Odense C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gjerstorff
authors.forename: Jorge S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Burns
authors.forename: Ole
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.forename: Moustapha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kassem
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ditzel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics*; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics; D044127:Epigenesis, Genetic; D015870:Gene Expression; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D047468:Immunoprecipitation; D059630:Mesenchymal Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000235:genetics; D019098:Telomerase / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm; D019098:Telomerase