www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/ Oncotarget, Vol. 6, No.7 HDAC1,2 inhibition impairs EZH2- and BBAP- mediated DNA repair to overcome chemoresistance in EZH2 gain-of-function mutant diffuse large B-cell lymphoma Danielle P. Johnson2,*, Gabriella S. Spitz1,*, Shweta Tharkar1, Steven N. Quayle3, Jeffrey R. Shearstone3, Simon Jones3, Maria E. McDowell1, Hannah Wellman1, Jessica K. Tyler4, Bradley R. Cairns2, Mahesh B. Chandrasekharan1 and Srividya Bhaskara1,2 1 Department of Radiation Oncology, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 2 Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT 3 Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Boston, MA 4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX * These authors contributed equally to the study Correspondence to: Srividya Bhaskara, email:
[email protected] Keywords: epigenetics, DNA repair, HDAC1,2, chromatin, EZH2 Received: November 01, 2014 Accepted: December 28, 2014 Published: December 31, 2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT Gain-of-function mutations in the catalytic site of EZH2 (Enhancer of Zeste Homologue 2), is observed in about 22% of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) cases. Here we show that selective inhibition of histone deacetylase 1,2 (HDAC1,2) activity using a small molecule inhibitor causes cytotoxic or cytostatic effects in EZH2 gain-of-function mutant (EZH2GOF) DLBCL cells. Our results show that blocking the activity of HDAC1,2 increases global H3K27ac without causing a concomitant global decrease in H3K27me3 levels.