GSE160006
MAT2A and methionine dependency are indispensible for H3K27M mutant gliomas.
Gliomas bearing driver mutations of histone 3 lysine 27 (H3K27M) are incurable brain tumors. H3K27M mutant tumors display unique epigenomes with global loss of the chromatin repressive H3K27 trimethylation mark. Here, we generated a syngeneic H3K27M mouse model to study the dependence upon amino acid (AA) metabolism by performing an AA drop out screen. H3K27M mutant cells, but not histone wildtype cells, were highly dependent on the amino acid, methionine. Interrogating the methionine cycle dependency through an siRNA screen identified the enzyme Methionine Adenosyltransferase 2A (MAT2A), which catalyzes production of S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), a methyl donor. Sensitivity to MAT2A loss in H3K27M mutant cells was not mediated through the canonical mechanism of MTAP deletion; instead, H3K27M mutant cells have lower MAT2A protein levels, which is mediated by Adenosylmethionine Decarboxylase 1 (AMD1) production of decarboxylated SAM (dcSAM). MAT2A loss induces global depletion of H3K36me3, a potent chromatin mark of transcriptional elongation, as evaluated by quantitative chromatin immunoprecipitation with reference exogenous genome sequencing (ChIP-Rx-Seq) in multiple DIPG lines. Tandem H3K36me3 ChIP-Rx-seq and RNA-seq identified several oncogenic and developmental transcriptional programs associated with MAT2A loss. Moreover, inducible knockdown of MAT2A or methionine-restricted diets (MR) extended survival in both syngeneic and patient-derived xenograft models (PDXs) in vivo. Collectively, our results provide novel connections between AA metabolism and the epigenome in H3K27M gliomas, suggesting that MAT2A, a central regulator of methionine metabolism, presents exploitable therapeutic vulnerabilities in H3K27M gliomas. Overall design: ChIP-Rx