Identification of Dna Sequence Variants in the Estrogen
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
IDENTIFICATION OF DNA SEQUENCE VARIANTS IN THE ESTROGEN RECEPTOR PATHWAY IN BREAST CANCER by Seyed Amir Bahreini BSc in Cell & Mol Biology, University of Isfahan, Iran, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Department of Human Genetics Graduate School of Public Health in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2016 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Graduate School of Public Health This dissertation was presented by Seyed Amir Bahreini It was defended on April 6, 2016 and approved by Dissertation Advisor: Steffi Oesterreich, PhD Professor Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology School of Medicine University of Pittsburgh Committee Members: Candace M. Kammerer, PhD Professor Department of Human Genetics Graduate School of Public Health University of Pittsburgh Adrian V. Lee, PhD Professor Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology School of Medicine University of Pittsburgh Ryan L. Minster, PhD Professor Department of Human Genetics Graduate School of Public Health University of Pittsburgh ii Copyright © by Seyed Amir Bahreini 2016 iii Steffi Oesterreich, PhD IDENTIFICATION OF DNA SEQUENCE VARIANTS IN THE ESTROGEN RECEPTOR PATHWAY IN BREAST CANCER Seyed Amir Bahreini, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2016 ABSTRACT Breast cancer is of public health importance with an increasing incidence over the past decade. Estrogen Receptor (ER) activity is critical for promoting majority of breast cancers. Inhibiting ER is one of the most successful targeted therapies in oncology. Studies have suggested that genomic variation in ER binding sites and ESR1 gene may be responsible for endocrine treatment response and cancer progression. We investigated the role of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in the ER pathway in breast cancer, including clinically relevant mutations in ER gene and regulatory variants in ER binding sites. First, we developed a computational pipeline to identify SNVs in ER binding sites, using chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-seq) data from hormone responsive breast cancer cells and tumors. Analysis of ER ChIP-seq data from multiple MCF7 studies characterized a SNV within intron 2 of the IGF1R gene, rs62022087, predicted to increase the affinity for ER binding. By integrating 43 ER ChIP-seq data sets, multi-omics and clinical data, we identified SNVs regulating downstream target genes which may contribute to patients’ survival. Second, we used sensitive detection methods to detect mutations and identified high frequencies ESR1 mutations in primary tumors, metastatic lesions and cell-free DNA samples. This result may be due to higher sensitivity of our study in detecting mutations at very low allele frequency. Finally, we generated appropriate knock-in cell lines through CRISPR technology to study ER mutations. RNA-seq studies revealed ER iv mutations are can activate estrogen regulated genes in a ligand independent manner and also may induce/repress a set of novel targets. Cell adhesion assays demonstrated mutants are less adhesive to Collagen I which may be a marker of metastasis. Taken together, our findings indicate that SNVs in ER pathway are clinically important and may predict drug response in ER+ breast cancer. From the public health perspective, screening for these impactful variants will be soon part of the genetic testing as our knowledge of genome improves. This will eventually help initiatives to reduce public health burden by choosing the right treatment for breast cancer patients in personalized manner. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................... XV LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................... XVII 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 ESTROGEN RECEPTOR STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION ........................ 1 1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF ESTROGEN RECEPTOR IN BREAST CANCER .... 3 1.3 DNA SEQUENCE VARIANTS ASSOCIATED WITH ER BINDING IN BREAST CANCER .............................................................................................................. 5 1.4 ESR1 GENE MUTATIONS IN PRIMARY AND METASTATIC BREAST CANCER ............................................................................................................................... 7 1.5 PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE .................................................................... 9 1.6 HYPOTHESIS ................................................................................................... 11 2.0 IDENTIFICATION OF REGULATORY SINGLE NUCLEOTIDE VARIANTS IN ESTROGEN RECEPTOR BINDING* ............................................................................... 13 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 13 2.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS ...................................................................... 16 2.2.1 Extracting genomic variants from ChIP-seq reads .................................... 16 2.2.2 Extracting somatic SNV in ER binding sites from WGS data .................. 16 2.2.3 Identifying predicted DNA binding sites using ChIP-seq data ................. 17 vi 2.2.4 Motif analysis and p-value scoring of the regSNVs* .................................. 17 2.2.5 TCGA data analysis....................................................................................... 18 2.2.6 ChIP ................................................................................................................ 18 2.2.7 Allele specific ChIP ........................................................................................ 19 2.2.8 RNA extraction and quantitative PCR (qPCR) .......................................... 19 2.2.9 Cloning and luciferase assay ......................................................................... 19 2.3 RESULTS ........................................................................................................... 20 2.3.1 In-silico Identification of regSNVs in MCF7 ER ChIP-seq data .............. 20 2.3.2 ER binding is associated with an intronic regSNV in IGF1R .................... 23 2.3.3 Discovery of RegSNVs in available breast cancer ER ChIP-seq data ...... 26 2.3.4 Identification of somatic RegSNVs in WGS data of breast tumors .......... 29 2.4 DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................... 30 3.0 SENSITIVE DETECTION OF MONO- AND POLYCLONAL ESR1 MUTATIONS IN PRIMARY TUMORS, METASTATIC LESIONS AND CELL FREE DNA OF BREAST CANCER PATIENTS* ............................................................................. 34 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 37 3.2 METHOD ........................................................................................................... 39 3.2.1 Sample acquisition ......................................................................................... 39 3.2.2 DNA isolation, preparation, and quantification ......................................... 39 3.2.3 Mutation detection by ddPCR ...................................................................... 40 3.2.4 Quantitative analysis ..................................................................................... 42 3.3 RESULTS ........................................................................................................... 42 3.3.1 ESR1 mutations in primary tumors ............................................................. 42 vii 3.3.2 ESR1 mutations in bone metastases ............................................................. 44 3.3.3 ESR1 mutations in brain metastases ............................................................ 45 3.3.4 ESR1 mutations in cfDNA ............................................................................ 45 3.3.5 Analysis of ESR1 mutations in serial blood samples, and matched metastatic tumors ....................................................................................................... 47 3.4 DISCUSSION ..................................................................................................... 50 3.4.1 ESR1 mutations are present at very low allele frequency in primary ER- positive breast cancer ................................................................................................. 50 3.4.2 ESR1 is mutated in both brain and bone metastases ................................. 51 3.4.3 ESR1 exhibits polyclonal mutations ............................................................. 52 3.4.4 Longitudinal monitoring of ESR1 mutations in cfDNA ............................. 52 3.5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................................ 53 4.0 THE BIOLOGY OF ESR1 MUTATIONS IN METASTATIC BREAST CANCER* ................................................................................................................................... 55 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 55 4.2 MATERIALS AND METHODS ...................................................................... 57 4.2.1 Cell culture ..................................................................................................... 57 4.2.2 Generation of ESR1 mutant cell lines .........................................................