EWS-FLI1 in Ewing's sarcoma: real targets and collateral damage

Fli1 and Tissue Fibrosis in Various Diseases

Being initially described as a factor of virally-induced leukemias, Fli1 (Friend leukemia integration 1) has attracted considerable interest lately due to its role in both healthy physiology and a variety of pathological conditions. Over the past few years, Fli1 has been found to be one of the crucial regulators of normal hematopoiesis, vasculogenesis, and immune response. However, abnormal expression of Fli1 due to genetic predisposition, epigenetic reprogramming (modifications), or environmental factors is associated with a few diseases of different etiology. Fli1 hyperexpression leads to malignant transformation of cells and progression of cancers such as Ewing's sarcoma. Deficiency in Fli1 is implicated in the development of systemic sclerosis and hypertensive disorders, which are often accompanied by pronounced fibrosis in different organs. This review summarizes the initial findings and the most recent advances in defining the role of Fli1 in diseases of different origin with emphasis on its pro-fibrotic potential.

Transcriptomic analysis functionally maps the intrinsically disordered domain of EWS/FLI and reveals novel transcriptional dependencies for oncogenesis

EWS/FLI is the pathognomic fusion oncoprotein that drives Ewing sarcoma. The amino-terminal EWS portion coordinates transcriptional regulation and the carboxy-terminal FLI portion contains an ETS DNA-binding domain. EWS/FLI acts as an aberrant transcription factor, orchestrating a complex mix of gene activation and repression, from both high affinity ETS motifs and repetitive GGAA-microsatellites. Our overarching hypothesis is that executing multi-faceted transcriptional regulation requires EWS/FLI to use distinct molecular mechanisms at different loci. Many attempts have been made to map distinct functions to specific features of the EWS domain, but described deletion mutants are either fully active or completely "dead" and other approaches have been limited by the repetitive and disordered nature of the EWS domain. Here, we use transcriptomic approaches to show an EWS/FLI mutant, called DAF, previously thought to be nonfunctional, displays context-dependent and partial transcriptional activity but lacks transforming capacity. Using transcriptomic and phenotypic anchorage-independent growth profiles of other EWS/FLI mutants coupled with reported EWS/FLI localization data, we have mapped the critical structure-function requirements of the EWS domain for EWS/FLI-mediated oncogenesis. This approach defined unique classes of EWS/FLI response elements and revealed novel structure-function relationships required for EWS/FLI activation at these response elements.

Twenty Years on: What Do We Really Know about Ewing Sarcoma and What Is the Path Forward?

Ewing sarcoma (ES) is a highly aggressive bone and soft-tissue tumor with peak incidence among adolescents and young adults. Despite advances in local control and systemic chemotherapy, metastatic relapse after an initial clinical remission remains a significant clinical problem. In addition, metastasis at the time of presentation or at relapse continues to be the leading cause of death for patients diagnosed with ES. Since the discovery of the pathognomonic EWS-FLI1 fusion gene more than 20 years ago, much about the molecular and cellular biology of ES pathogenesis has been learned. In addition, more recent exploitation of advances in stem cell and developmental biology has provided key insights into the cellular origins of ES and the role of epigenetic deregulation in tumor initiation and maintenance. Nevertheless, the mechanisms that drive tumor relapse and metastasis remain largely unknown. These gaps in our knowledge continue to hamper the development of novel therapeutic strategies that may improve outcomes for patients with relapsed and metastatic disease. In this article we review the current status of ES biology research, highlighting areas of investigation that we consider to have the greatest potential to yield findings that will translate into clinically significant advances.

BMI-1 suppresses contact inhibition and stabilizes YAP in Ewing sarcoma

The polycomb group family protein BMI-1 is overexpressed by and functions as an oncogene in many different human cancers. We have previously shown that BMI-1 promotes the tumorigenicity of Ewing sarcoma family tumors (ESFTs) and that this is mediated independently of CDKN2A repression. In this study, we have discovered that high levels of BMI-1 confer resistance to contact inhibition in ESFT cells. Using stable retroviral transduction, we evaluated the consequences of BMI-1 knockdown on the growth of CDKN2A wild-type and mutant ESFT cells in subconfluent and confluent conditions. Although knockdown of BMI-1 had no effect on proliferation in low-density cultures, at high cell densities it resulted in cell cycle arrest and death. The normal cell contact inhibition response is mediated, in large part, by the recently described Hippo pathway which functions to inhibit cell proliferation and promote cell death by inactivating the Yes-Associated Protein (YAP). Significantly, we found that YAP levels, activity and expression did not diminish in confluent ESFT cells that expressed high levels of BMI-1. In contrast, YAP expression and nuclear localization were reduced in confluent BMI-1 knockdown cells suggesting that silencing of BMI-1 restored contact inhibition by restoring normal activation of the Hippo-YAP growth-suppressor pathway. Importantly, knockdown of YAP in ESFT cells resulted in profound inhibition of cell proliferation and anchorage-independent colony formation suggesting that stabilization and continued expression of YAP is critical for ESFT growth and tumorigenicity. Together, these studies reveal a previously unrecognized link between BMI-1, contact inhibition and the Hippo-YAP pathway and suggest that resistance to contact inhibition in BMI-1 overexpressing cancer cells may be in part a result of Hippo inhibition and aberrant stabilization of YAP.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells and the Origin of Ewing's Sarcoma

The origin of Ewing's sarcoma is a subject of much debate. Once thought to be derived from primitive neuroectodermal cells, many now believe it to arise from a mesenchymal stem cell (MSC). Expression of the EWS-FLI1 fusion gene in MSCs changes cell morphology to resemble Ewing's sarcoma and induces expression of neuroectodermal markers. In murine cells, transformation to sarcomas can occur. In knockdown experiments, Ewing's sarcoma cells develop characteristics of MSCs and the ability to differentiate into mesodermal lineages. However, it cannot be concluded that MSCs are the cell of origin. The concept of an MSC still needs to be rigorously defined, and there may be different subpopulations of mesenchymal pluripotential cells. Furthermore, EWS-FLI1 by itself does not transform human cells, and cooperating mutations appear to be necessary. Therefore, while it is possible that Ewing's sarcoma may originate from a primitive mesenchymal cell, the idea needs to be refined further.

Integrating multiple microarray data for cancer pathway analysis using bootstrapping K-S test

Previous applications of microarray technology for cancer research have mostly focused on identifying genes that are differentially expressed between a particular cancer and normal cells. In a biological system, genes perform different molecular functions and regulate various biological processes via interactions with other genes thus forming a variety of complex networks. Therefore, it is critical to understand the relationship (e.g., interactions) between genes across different types of cancer in order to gain insights into the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Here we propose an integrative method based on the bootstrapping Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and a large set of microarray data produced with various types of cancer to discover common molecular changes in cells from normal state to cancerous state. We evaluate our method using three key pathways related to cancer and demonstrate that it is capable of finding meaningful alterations in gene relations.