Abstract
Hypoxia is a hallmark of cancer development. However, the molecular mechanisms by which hypoxia promotes tumor metastasis are not fully understood. In this study, we demonstrate that hypoxia promotes breast cancer metastasis through suppression of ΔNp63α in a HIF1α-independent manner. We show that hypoxia-activated XBP1s forms a stable repressor protein complex with HDAC2 and EZH2 to suppress ΔNp63α transcription. Notably, H3K27ac is predominantly occupied on the ΔNp63 promoter under normoxia, while H3K27me3 on the promoter under hypoxia. We show that XBP1s binds to the ΔNp63 promoter to recruit HDAC2 and EZH2 in facilitating the switch of H3K27ac to H3K27me3. Pharmacological inhibition or the knockdown of either HDAC2 or EZH2 leads to increased H3K27ac, accompanied by the reduced H3K27me3 and restoration of ΔNp63α expression suppressed by hypoxia, resulting in inhibition of cell migration. Furthermore, the pharmacological inhibition of IRE1α, but not HIF1α, upregulates ΔNp63α expression in vitro and inhibits tumor metastasis in vivo. Clinical analyses reveal that reduced p63 expression is correlated with the elevated expression of XBP1, HDAC2, or EZH2, and is associated with poor overall survival in human breast cancer patients. Together, these results indicate that hypoxia-activated XBP1s modulates the epigenetic program in suppression of ΔNp63α to promote breast cancer metastasis independent of HIF1α and provides a molecular basis for targeting the XBP1s/HDAC2/EZH2-ΔNp63α axis as a putative strategy in the treatment of breast cancer metastasis.
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The data analyzed during this study are included in this published article and the supplemental data files.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful for members of Xiao lab for stimulating discussion during this study.
Funding
This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (81903018, 92259102), National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1103700), Natural Science Foundation of Chengdu Medical College (CYZZD21-01), Introduction Foundation of High-level Talents of The First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College (CYFY-GQ37) and Disciplinary Construction Innovation Team Foundation of Chengdu Medical College (CMCXK-2101).
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HC and SHY performed all the biochemical experiments. SHY, RDM, and LYD analyzed and processed the IHC data from cell lines. YY and MMN analyzed and processed the public database. HC, CX and ZXX analyzed all experiments, managed the overall study, and supervised manuscript preparation and submission. All authors have contributed to the final version of the manuscript and rebuttal.
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All human tissue research in this study had the approval of ethics committees of the Affiliated Taizhou People’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University (Taizhou, China) and Shanghai Outdo Biotech (Shanghai, China). All participants provided informed consent. Animal care and experiments in this study were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) of Chengdu Medical College, and the procedures were carried out according to the guidelines established by the China Council on Animal Care.
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Chen, H., Yu, S., Ma, R. et al. Hypoxia-activated XBP1s recruits HDAC2-EZH2 to engage epigenetic suppression of ΔNp63α expression and promote breast cancer metastasis independent of HIF1α. Cell Death Differ 31, 447–459 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-024-01271-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41418-024-01271-z
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