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Requirement of the histone demethylase LSD1 in Snai1-mediated transcriptional repression during epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Oncogene volume 29, pages 4896–4904 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has pivotal roles during embryonic development and carcinoma progression. Members of the Snai1 family of zinc finger transcription factors are central mediators of EMT and induce EMT in part by directly repressing epithelial markers such as E-cadherin, a gatekeeper of the epithelial phenotype and a suppressor of tumor invasion. However, the molecular mechanism underlying Snai1-mediated transcriptional repression remains incompletely understood. Here we show that Snai1 physically interacts with and recruits the histone demethylase LSD1 (KDM1A) to epithelial gene promoters. LSD1 removes dimethylation of lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4m2), a covalent histone modification associated with active chromatin. Importantly, LSD1 is essential for Snai1-mediated transcriptional repression and for maintenance of the silenced state of Snai1 target genes in invasive cancer cells. In the absence of LSD1, Snai1 fails to repress E-cadherin. In cancer cells in which E-cadherin is silenced, depletion of LSD1 results in partial de-repression of epithelial genes and elevated H3K4m2 levels at the E-cadherin promoter. These results underline the critical role of LSD1 in Snai1-dependent transcriptional repression of epithelial markers and suggest that the LSD1 complex could be a potential therapeutic target for prevention of EMT-associated tumor invasion.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate technical assistance from Linbao Ai and Heiman Wang. We are grateful to Mien-Chie Hung (MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, USA), M Angela Nieto (Instituto de Neurociencias CSIC-UMH, Spain), Suming Huang, Yi Qiu and Lizi Wu for kindly providing reagents. We thank Mike Kilberg and Jorg Bungert for critical reading of the paper. This study was supported by grants to JL from Stop! Children's Cancer, Florida Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program (09BN-12-23092), The National Cancer Institute (R01CA137021) and to AP from the University Scholars Program at University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA

    T Lin, A Ponn, X Hu & J Lu

  2. Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA

    B K Law

  3. College of Life Science, Jilin University, Changchun, China

    X Hu

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  1. T Lin
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Correspondence to J Lu.

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Lin, T., Ponn, A., Hu, X. et al. Requirement of the histone demethylase LSD1 in Snai1-mediated transcriptional repression during epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Oncogene 29, 4896–4904 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2010.234

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