SPOP Mutation Leads to Genomic Instability in Prostate Cancer Authors
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1 Title: 2 SPOP mutation leads to genomic instability in prostate cancer 3 4 Authors: 5 Gunther Boysen1,8, Christopher E. Barbieri2,3, Davide Prandi4, Mirjam Blattner1, Sung-Suk Chae1, Arun 6 Dahiya1, Srilakshmi Nataraj1, Dennis Huang1, Clarisse Marotz1, Limei Xu1, Julie Huang1, Paola Lecca4, 7 Sagar Chhangawala5,6, Deli Liu2,6, Pengbo Zhou1, Andrea Sboner1,6,7, Johann S. de Bono8, Francesca 8 Demichelis4,6,7, Yariv Houvras5,9, Mark A. Rubin1,2,3,7 9 10 Affiliations: 11 1 Department of Pathologygy and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New 12 York, USA 13 2 Department of Urologygy, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA 14 3 Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA 15 4 Centre for Integrative Biologygy, University of Trento, Trento, Italy 16 5 Department of Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA 17 6 HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill 18 Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA 19 7 Institute for Precision Medicine of Weill Cornell Medical College and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, 20 New York, New York, USA 21 8 Division of Clinical Studies, The Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden, London, UK 22 9 Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA 23 24 These authors contributed equally to this work. 25 G. Boysen, C.E. Barbieri 26 27 These authors jointly directed this work. 28 F. Demichelis, Y. Houvras, M.A. Rubin 29 30 Corresponding authors: 31 C.E. Barbieri: [email protected] 32 M.A. Rubin: [email protected] 33 34 Key words: 35 Prostate Cancer, Cancer Genomics, SPOP, DNA repair 36 37 Disclosure of potential conflict of interest 38 A patent (US Patent Application No: 2013/0331,279) has been issued to Weill Medical College of Cornell 39 University on SPOP mutations in prostate cancer; C.E.B and M.A.R are listed as co-inventors. 1 40 Abstract 41 Genomic instability is a fundamental feature of human cancer often resulting from impaired genome 42 maintenance. In prostate cancer, structural genomic rearrangements are a common mechanism driving 43 tumorigenesis. However, somatic alterations predisposing to chromosomal rearrangements in prostate 44 cancer remain largely undefined. Here, we show that SPOP, the most commonly mutated gene in 45 primary prostate cancer, modulates DNA double strand break (DSB) repair, and that SPOP mutation is 46 associated with genomic instability. In vivo, SPOP mutation results in a transcriptional response 47 consistent with BRCA1 inactivation resulting in impaired homology-directed repair (HDR) of DSB. 48 Furthermore, we found that SPOP mutation sensitizes to DNA damaging therapeutic agents such as 49 PARP inhibitors. These results implicate SPOP as a novel participant in DSB repair, suggest that SPOP 50 mutation drives prostate tumorigenesis in part through genomic instability, and indicate that mutant 51 SPOP may increase response to DNA damaging therapeutics. 52 53 Introduction 54 Genomic instability is a fundamental feature of human cancer, and DNA repair defects resulting in 55 impaired genome maintenance promote pathogenesis of many human cancers1,2. In prostate cancer, 56 structural genomic rearrangements, including translocations (e.g., TMPRSS2-ERG) and copy number 57 aberrations (e.g., 8q gain, 10q23/PTEN loss), are a key mechanism driving tumorigenesis3-9. 58 Whole genome sequencing (WGS) has allowed an unprecedented insight into the alterations 59 underlying cancer. Recently, WGS of treatment naïve, clinically localized prostate cancer revealed a 60 striking abundance of genomic rearrangements, in some samples comparable to the number of 61 rearrangements in metastatic prostate cancer10. Furthermore, the type (intrachromosomal vs. 62 interchromosomal) and complexity of rearrangements in these tumors shows remarkable heterogeneity, 63 potentially suggesting distinct mechanisms of instability in different molecular classes of prostate cancer. 64 However, somatic alterations underlying these phenomena remain unexplained. 2 65 Mutations in SPOP (Speckle-type POZ protein) occur in around 10% of prostate cancers, and 66 represent the most common non-synonymous mutations in primary prostate cancer11. SPOP mutations 67 define a distinct molecular class of prostate cancer; they are mutually exclusive with ETS 68 rearrangements, but display distinct patterns of somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs)11. 69 Here we investigated somatic alterations associated with genomic rearrangements in prostate 70 cancer. We show that SPOP mutation is an early event specifically associated with increased 71 intrachromosomal genomic rearrangements. Mechanistically, in vitro and in vivo data suggest that SPOP 72 participates in repair of DNA double strand breaks (DSB), and SPOP mutation impairs homology- 73 directed repair (HDR), instead promoting error-prone non-homologous end joining (NHEJ). 74 75 Results 76 To nominate somatic events associated with structural genomic rearrangements in clinically 77 localize prostate cancer, we examined WGS data from 55 treatment naïve prostate cancers10 (Figure 78 1A). This analysis revealed a bimodal distribution, with a more common, “low-rearrangement” population, 79 and a less frequent “high-rearrangement” population primarily driven by intrachromosomal 80 rearrangements (deletions, inversions, and tandem duplications), rather than balanced interchromosomal 81 rearrangements (Figure 1B). We then analyzed the association between recurrent somatic alterations 82 (point mutations and somatic copy number alterations [SCNAs]) and number of rearrangements (Figure 83 1C; Figure 1-figure supplements 1,2). Several recurrent deletions, primarily on chromosomes 5q and 6q, 84 were significantly associated with intrachromosomal genomic rearrangements (Figure 1 – figure 85 supplement 1), and these were completely distinct compared to alterations associated with 86 interchromosomal rearrangements (Figure 1 – figure supplement 2). Among recurrent point mutations, 87 only a single lesion – mutation in SPOP – was significantly associated with increased rearrangements 88 (Figure 1C). Consistent with increased intrachromosomal rearrangements, SCNA analysis revealed that 89 SPOP mutant prostate cancers showed significantly higher total copy number alteration burden (Figure 90 1D). 3 91 SPOP mutation frequently co-occurs with specific SCNAs, designating a molecular class of 92 prostate cancer11,12 (Figure 1 – figure supplement 3). Independent analysis of SCNAs from three publicly 93 available datasets comprising 430 tumors,10,11,13 including 47 SPOP mutant prostate cancers, confirmed 94 that the rearrangement-associated deletions (Figure 1-figure supplement 1) were those enriched in 95 SPOP mutant prostate cancer (Figure 1E). When individually comparing SPOP mutations and 96 associated deletions (CHD1 and MAP3K7), we did not observe significant differences in SCNA burden 97 for any one lesion (Figure 1 – figure supplement 4). Analysis of clonality10,14 of specific lesions showed 98 that SPOP mutations were highly clonal compared to loci in the associated deletion peaks, supporting 99 that SPOP mutations precede deletions (Figure 1F). In addition, analysis of dependencies of the lesions 100 supports SPOP mutations preceding CHD1 deletions; no lesions were predicted to precede SPOP 101 mutation (Figure 1 – figure supplement 5). Together, these data nominate a distinct prostate cancer 102 class characterized by early SPOP mutations and genomic instability. We posited that the SPOP 103 mutation impacts genome maintenance and prioritized SPOP for functional studies. 104 105 We explored the functional role of SPOP in vivo, using zebrafish as a rapidly assessable 106 vertebrate model system. SPOP is highly conserved (97.3% identical at the amino acid level between 107 human and zebrafish, Figure 2-figure supplement 1A). Knockdown of Spop by two different splice- 108 blocking morpholinos (MO5, MO7) dramatically impaired brain and eye development as well as 109 decreased overall body size (Figure. 2A,B; Figure 2-figure supplement 1F), resulted in gene expression 110 changes consistent with p53 activation, and apoptosis measured by TUNEL assay (Figure 2C, Figure 2- 111 figure supplement 1E). Microinjection of human SPOP mRNA rescued these phenotypes, confirming 112 specificity of the morpholino effects (Figure 2A-C, Figure 2-figure supplement 1F). To nominate signaling 113 pathways impacted by Spop, we performed transcriptional profiling using RNA-seq on zebrafish with 114 Spop knockdown and ectopic expression of wildtype SPOP (SPOP-wt) and SPOP-F133V, the most 115 commonly mutated residue in prostate cancer (Figure 2D). Consistent with recently reported proteomic 116 data15 and heterodimerization between mutant and wildtype SPOP in our models (Figure 2-figure 4 117 supplement 2), transcriptional responses to SPOP-F133V compared with SPOP-wt and Spop morpholino 118 showed a pattern consistent with dominant negative, selective loss of function; SPOP-F133V correlated 119 with SPOP-wt for some gene sets (Cluster B) and correlated with Spop morpholino for others (Cluster A) 120 (Figure 2D, Figure 2- source data 1). Gene Set Enrichment Analyses (GSEA) revealed gene sets 121 involving DNA repair impacted by modulating SPOP function (Figure 2- source data 2). Notably, the 122 transcriptional response to F133V correlated highly with BRCA1 inactivation (Figure 2E).