Localized chromatin modifications of histone tails play an important role in regulating gene transcription, and aberration of these processes leads to carcinogenesis. Methylated histone lysine residues, a key player in chromatin remodeling, are demethylated by the JmjC class of enzymes. Here we show that JMJD5 (now renamed KDM8), a JmjC family member, demethylates H3K36me2 and is required for cell cycle progression. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays applied to human genome tiling arrays in conjunction with RNA microarray revealed that KDM8 occupies the coding region of cyclin A1 and directly regulates transcription. Mechanistic analyses showed that KDM8 functioned as a transcriptional activator by inhibiting HDAC recruitment via demethylation of H3K36me2, an epigenetic repressive mark. Tumor array experiments revealed KDM8 is overexpressed in several types of cancer. In addition, loss-of-function studies in MCF7 cells leads to cell cycle arrest. These studies identified KDM8 as an important cell cycle regulator.egulation of gene expression through posttranslational modification of the core histones has increasingly shown to be of great importance, particularly in a cancer setting. Among the multiple types of histone modifications, histone methylation, once considered irreversible, has quickly emerged to become a key epigenetic mark in regulating many critical cellular functions. The recent discovery of histone demethylases has shed light on the reversibility of this chromatin mark and its effects on gene expression. Studies exploring the JmjC (Jumonji C domain)-containing proteins, a newclass of histone demethylases (1-4), primarily identified their enzymatic activity at the promoters of specific target genes (5, 6).The JmjC domain-containing gene family encodes a wide range of the eukaryotic genome and is conserved in species spanning from yeast to humans. Currently, most family members classified as histone demethylases contain known histone-binding domains such as PHD and Tudor domains (7). JMJD5 (renamed KDM8) is a member of this extensive protein family that lacks recognizable histone-binding domains and remains largely unexplored. Although one study speculated that KDM8 acts as a potential tumor suppressor gene based on retrovirus insertional mutagenesis (8), no biological and molecular characterizations were described in the report.We extensively examine and provide evidence that KDM8 possesses H3K36me2 demethylase activity and has the ability to regulate cyclin A1 transcription in MCF7 breast cancer cells. We found that KDM8 is recruited to cyclin A1 coding region bound H3K36me2 and demethylates this mark, resulting in increased transcriptional activity. This finding is a departure from previous studies that showed that the majority of histone demethylases exert their epigenetic effects at the promoters of genes. Additionally, we describe overexpression of KDM8 in breast cancer tumors as well as its requirement for MCF7 cell cycle progression. ResultsJMJD5/KDM8 Is a H3K36me2 Demethylase. Our initial e...

Defects in the biogenesis of or transport through primary cilia affect Hedgehog protein signaling, and many Hedgehog pathway components traffic through or accumulate in cilia. The Hedgehog receptor, Patched, negatively regulates the activity and ciliary accumulation of Smoothened, a seven transmembrane protein that is essential for transducing the Hedgehog signal. We found that this negative regulation of Smoothened required the ciliary localization of Patched, as specified either by its own cytoplasmic tail or by provision of heterologous ciliary localization signals. Surprisingly, given that Hedgehog binding promotes the exit of Patched from the cilium, we observed that an altered form of Patched that is retained in the cilium nevertheless responded to Hedgehog, resulting in Smoothened activation. Our results indicate that, whereas ciliary localization of Patched is essential for suppression of Smoothened activation, the primary event enabling Smoothened activation is binding of Hedgehog to Patched, and Patched ciliary removal is secondary.

The complex function and regulation of nuclear receptors cannot be fully understood without a thorough knowledge of the receptor-associated coregulators that either enhance (coactivators) or inhibit (corepressors) transcription. While nuclear receptors themselves have garnered much attention as therapeutic targets, the clinical and etiological relevance of the coregulators to human diseases is increasingly recognized. Aberrant expression or function of coactivators and corepressors has been associated with malignant and metabolic disease development. Many of them are key epigenetic regulators and utilize enzymatic activities to modify chromatin through histone acetylation/deacetylation, histone methylation/demethylation or chromatin remodeling. In this review, we showcase and evaluate coregulators with the most promising therapeutic potential based on their physiological roles and involvement in various diseases that are revealed thus far. We also describe the structural features of the coactivator and corepressor functional domains and highlight areas that can be further explored for molecular targeting.

The proto-oncogene ACTR/AIB1, a coactivator for transcription factors such as the nuclear receptors and E2Fs, is frequently overexpressed in various cancers including breast cancers. However, the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we identified several functional, noncanonical E2F binding sites in the ACTR first exon and intron that are critical for ACTR gene activation. We also found that the newly identified AAA+ coregulator AAA+ nuclear coregulator cancer associated (ANCCA) is recruited to the ACTR promoter and directly controls ACTR expression in breast cancer cells. Importantly, immunohistochemistry analysis indicated that ACTR overexpression is highly correlated with the expression of E2F1 and ANCCA in a cohort of human primary and lymph node-metastasized breast cancer specimens. Along with previous findings from us and others that ACTR is involved in its own gene regulation, these results suggest that one major mechanism of ACTR overexpression in cancer is the concerted, aberrant function of the nuclear coregulators such as ANCCA and ACTR, and they point to therapeutic strategies that target the Rb-E2F axis and/or the coregulator ANCCA for ACTR-overexpressing cancers. Mol Cancer Res; 8(2); 183-93. ©2010 AACR.

The Drosophila Hedgehog receptor functions to regulate the essential downstream pathway component, Smoothened, and to limit the range of signaling by sequestering Hedgehog protein signal within imaginal disc epithelium. Hedgehog receptor function requires both Patched and Ihog activity, the latter interchangeably encoded by interference hedgehog (ihog) or brother of ihog (boi). Here we show that Patched and Ihog activity are mutually required for receptor endocytosis and degradation, triggered by Hedgehog protein binding, and causing reduced levels of Ihog/Boi proteins in a stripe of cells at the anterior/posterior compartment boundary of the wing imaginal disc. This Ihog spatial discontinuity may contribute to classically defined cell segregation and lineage restriction at the anterior/posterior wing disc compartment boundary, as suggested by our observations that Ihog activity mediates aggregation of otherwise non-adherent cultured cells and that loss of Ihog activity disrupts wing disc cell segregation, even with downstream genetic rescue of Hedgehog signal response.