Abstract
Gastrointestinal adenocarcinomas (GIAC) of the tubular gastrointestinal (GI) tract including esophagus, stomach, colon, and rectum comprise most GI cancers and share a spectrum of genomic features. However, the unified epigenomic changes specific to GIAC are poorly characterized. Using 907 GIAC samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas, we applied mathematical algorithms to large-scale DNA methylome and transcriptome profiles to reconstruct transcription factor (TF) networks and identify a list of functionally hyperactive master regulator (MR) TF shared across different GIAC. The top candidate HNF4A exhibited prominent genomic and epigenomic activation in a GIAC-specific manner. A complex interplay between the HNF4A promoter and three distal enhancer elements was coordinated by GIAC-specific MRTF including ELF3, GATA4, GATA6, and KLF5. HNF4A also self-regulated its own promoter and enhancers. Functionally, HNF4A promoted cancer proliferation and survival by transcriptional activation of many downstream targets, including HNF1A and factors of interleukin signaling, in a lineage-specific manner. Overall, our study provides new insights into the GIAC-specific gene regulatory networks and identifies potential therapeutic strategies against these common cancers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2722-2736 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Cancer Research |
Volume | 80 |
Issue number | 13 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jul 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2020 American Association for Cancer Research.