Strategies to Re-Express Epigenetically-Silenced Tumor Suppressor Genes Converge on the Requirement for Inhibition of the Histone Methyltransferase SUV39H1.

Gene silencing mediated by aberrant promoter DNA hypermethylation represents a key mechanism by which tumor suppressor gene expression is silenced in cancer and it is associated with multiple repressive histone modifications. Histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9) methylation is a key repressive chromatin modification with important implications for regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and gene expression. SUV39H1 is a methyltransferase that catalyzes the addition of trimethyl groups to H3K9. SUV39H1 is associated with regions of hypermethylated CpG islands, with repressive complexes, such as RB/E2F, and with DNA-binding proteins involved in leukemogenesis, such as AML1 and PML-RAR, where its H3K9 trimethylation activity promotes heterochromatin formation and gene silencing. We studied the requirement of SUV39H1 in the epigenetic silencing of heavily methylated tumor suppressor genes p15INK4B and E-cadherin in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Treatment of AML cell lines AML193, KG1a, and Kasumi with the DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitor 5-Aza-2’-deoxycytidine (5-Aza-dC) induces p15INK4B and E-cadeherin re-expression in association with dramatic decreases in p15INK4B and E-cadherin promoter DNA methylation and marked reductions in the levels of SUV39H1 and H3K9 trimethylation at these promoters. Interestingly, treatment of these cell lines with SUV39H1 shRNA, or the SUV39H1 inhibitor chaetocin, also induces p15INK4B and E-cadherin re-expression and H3K9 demethylation, without affecting promoter DNA methylation. Thus, re-expression of hypermethylated tumor suppressors requires histone H3K9 demethylation, which can be achieved indirectly by decreasing the amount of SUV39H1 associated with the promoter using 5-Aza-dC, or directly by inhibiting SUV39H1 expression or activity without requiring promoter DNA demethylation. Furthermore, we found that SUV39H1 shRNA or chaetocin in combination with 5-Aza-dC acts synergistically to re-express epigenetically silenced p15INK4B and E-cadherin in AML cell lines. Treatment of primary human AML blasts obtained from two patients with combinations of 5-Aza-C and chaetocin also results in synergistic re-expression of p15INK4B and E-cadherin (2–6 fold increase with 5-Aza-C or chaetocin treatment vs. 11–14 fold increase with co-treatment). Our study has important implications for developing novel epigenetic therapies of relevance to AML as it suggests that the re-expression of tumor suppressor genes silenced by aberrant promoter DNA hypermethylation converges on the requirement for SUV39H1 and H3K9 methylation inhibition but not promoter DNA demethylation. Our finding that SUV39H1 inhibition may function synergistically with DNMT inhibitors to enhance gene reactivation and chromatin changes also highlights the needs for developing more inhibitors of histone methyltransferases and for performing detailed drug interaction studies to identify the best drug combinations for optimal epigenetic therapies.