BAZ2A (TIP5) is involved in epigenetic alterations in prostate cancer and its overexpression predicts disease recurrence.

Prostate cancer is driven by a combination of genetic and/or epigenetic alterations. Epigenetic alterations are frequently observed in all human cancers, yet how aberrant epigenetic signatures are established is poorly understood. Here we show that the gene encoding BAZ2A (TIP5), a factor previously implicated in epigenetic rRNA gene silencing, is overexpressed in prostate cancer and is paradoxically involved in maintaining prostate cancer cell growth, a feature specific to cancer cells. BAZ2A regulates numerous protein-coding genes and directly interacts with EZH2 to maintain epigenetic silencing at genes repressed in metastasis. BAZ2A overexpression is tightly associated with a molecular subtype displaying a CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP). Finally, high BAZ2A levels serve as an independent predictor of biochemical recurrence in a cohort of 7,682 individuals with prostate cancer. This work identifies a new aberrant role for the epigenetic regulator BAZ2A, which can also serve as a useful marker for metastatic potential in prostate cancer.

Citation

Lei Gu, Sandra C Frommel, Christopher C Oakes, Ronald Simon, Katharina Grupp, Cristina Y Gerig, Dominik Bär, Mark D Robinson, Constance Baer, Melanie Weiss, Zuguang Gu, Matthieu Schapira, Ruprecht Kuner, Holger Sültmann, Maurizio Provenzano, ICGC Project on Early Onset Prostate Cancer, Marie-Laure Yaspo, Benedikt Brors, Jan Korbel, Thorsten Schlomm, Guido Sauter, Roland Eils, Christoph Plass, Raffaella Santoro. BAZ2A (TIP5) is involved in epigenetic alterations in prostate cancer and its overexpression predicts disease recurrence. Nature genetics. 2015 Jan;47(1):22-30

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PMID: 25485837

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