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Advances in Brief |
1 Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research, 2 Departments of Pathology, 3 Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, and 4 Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington
| ABSTRACT |
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| Introduction |
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Aberrant promoter methylation of CpG-rich areas of promoter regions is the most frequent mechanism of TSG silencing in human tumors (3) . We have demonstrated previously that methylation of the TSG RASSF1A in malignant mesotheliomas is highly significantly associated with the presence of SV40 sequences (4 , 5) and that SV40 infection of normal human mesothelial cells resulted in progressive methylation of the gene (5) . For these reasons, we examined the methylation profile of 90 human lymphomas/leukemias, by testing aberrant methylation of 10 known or suspected TSGs and correlated the data with the presence of SV40 or EBV sequences.
| Materials and Methods |
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Tumors and Control Specimens.
Tumors and tissues were obtained from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center affiliated hospitals, after receiving Institutional Review Board permission. They included 90 tumors (42 non-Hodgkins lymphomas and 48 leukemias). The lymphomas included 36 B-cell and 6 T-cell lymphomas; 7 were of high grade (Burkitts lymphoma) and 35 were of intermediate grade (diffuse large B cell, mantle cell, large cell anaplastic, follicular, and marginal zone). The leukemias consisted of 38 acute and 10 chronic of lymphoid or myeloid origin. Of the hematological malignancies, 62 samples had flow cytometric analysis that included determination of the percentage of tumor cells. The 56 nonmalignant tissue samples consisted of bone marrows (n = 10), peripheral blood (n = 42), and lymph nodes (n = 4) from healthy volunteers (n = 15), patients with nonmalignant hematological diseases (n = 11), or patients with hematological malignancies in remission (n = 30). The peripheral blood samples included three that were enriched for stem cells (0.51% stem cells).
Infection of Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes with EBV and SV40 Viruses.
Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated from a healthy volunteer and infected with EBV, SV40, or both viruses at a multiplicity of infection of 50100 plaque forming units/cell (6)
. EBV virus stock was harvested from a chronically infected marmoset cell line (obtained from Dr. Nancy Schneider, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX). SV40 virus stocks were obtained from Dr. M. Carbone (Loyola University Medical Center, Chicago, IL) as lysates from infected green African monkey kidney cells.
DNA Preparation and PCR Analyses.
DNA was extracted (7)
and analyzed for the presence of SV40 Tag sequences using primers that PCR amplified a specific 156-bp region of the large Tag of SV40 (8)
. Southern blotting and sequencing were performed on the resultant amplicons (Fig. 1)
. For analysis of EBV and SV40 sequences, real-time PCR assays based on TaqMan technology (Perkin-Elmer Corp., Foster City, CA) were used (9)
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The sequences of primers and probes used to amplify and specifically detect EBV sequences were as described previously (10) . ß-Actin was used as an internal control for both assays. The sequences of primers and probes used to amplify and specifically detect SV40 sequences were located within the same SV40 region targeted by conventional PCR and were as follows: TGAGAGTCAGCAGT-AGCCTCATCA (forward primer; nucleotides 44484479); GTGGAATGCCTTTAATGAGGAAA (reverse primer; nucleotides 45144536); and 6FAM-5'-CACTAGATGGCATTTCTTCTGAGCAAAACAGG-3''-BHQ1(probe; nucleotides 44814512).
Conventional PCR methods for detection of methylated promoter genes were as described previously (4 , 11 , 12) . Bisulfite-treated DNA was tested by methylation-specific PCR (MSP) assays for all genes except for DAP kinase, which was tested for using a combined restriction analysis method (13) .
Statistical Analyses.
The frequencies of methylation between two groups were compared using Pearson
2 tests. The methylation index (MI) of different groups was compared using the two-sample t test. Correlation value was analyzed by simple regression analysis test. For all tests, probability values of P < 0.05 were regarded as statistically significant.
| Results |
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Tumor cell percentage estimates (obtained by flow cytometric analysis) were available for 42 of the lymphoma/leukemia samples (18 of which were positive and 24 were negative for SV40 by conventional PCR-Southern blot analysis). Real-time PCR analysis of these 42 samples indicated complete concordance between the results of the two assays for SV40 Tag sequences (Fig. 2)
. The threshold cycle (CT) values for the positive samples displayed a wide range, varying from 34 to 49. The SV40 hamster cell line had a CT value of 26. The no template control and all 24 tumor samples negative by conventional PCR did not amplify at 50 cycles. Of particular interest, there was an excellent correlation (r = 0.904, P < 0.0001) between tumor cell percentage and CT value.
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To examine whether there was any association between methylation and presence of SV40, frequencies of methylation for each gene in SV40-positive and SV40-negative samples were compared. The frequencies of methylation of the 10 genes in hematological malignancies varied from 19% for p73 to 97% for SHP1. For seven genes (CDH1, CDH13, p16, DcR1, DcR2, CRBP, and DAP kinase), the methylation frequencies were significantly higher in SV40-positive than SV40-negative cases, with P values ranging from 0.006 to <0.0001 (Fig. 3)
. There were no important differences between the methylation patterns of leukemias and lymphomas except that the differences between SV40-positive and -negative cases were statistically not significant for p16 and CRBP genes in leukemias and not significant for CDH1 in lymphomas (Fig. 3)
. Similar comparisons for EBV-positive and -negative lymphoma cases revealed no significant differences for any of the 10 genes studied (data not shown).
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Uninfected PBMC survived for only a few days. SV40-infected cells grew as adherent single cells having macrophage-like morphology for 1416 days and then underwent lysis. EBV virus-infected cells, with or without the addition of SV40, grew as relatively rapidly dividing floating cells with uropod formation and exhibited morphology typical of EBV-transformed B cells (14) . However, in the doubly infected cells, some attached macrophage-like cells also were present. After 6 weeks, both adherent and floating cells were harvested for molecular analyses. PCR-based assays indicated approximately equivalent amounts of EBV in single-infected (EBV) and dual-infected cultures. Real-time assays for SV40 indicated that the EBV virus-infected cells were negative for SV40 virus, whereas the dual-infected cells were positive, with a value (CT of 23) higher than that of the SV40-transformed hamster cell line (CT of 26).
MSP assays for methylation status of the 10 genes were performed on the EBV virus-infected and dual virus-infected cultures 6 weeks after infection. None of the genes was methylated in the uninfected or EBV-infected cultures. For the dual EBV- and SV40-infected cells, three of the 10 genes (CDH1, CDH13, and SHP1) were methylated 6 weeks after infection (Fig. 4)
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| Discussion |
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Although we failed to detect SV40 in tissues from subjects without malignancy, it is possible that SV40 was present in nonmalignant tissues from patients with hematological cancers (and possibly in some of the control cases) but at levels that were not detected by our techniques. EBV sequences were, with rare exceptions, limited to lymphomas (26%) and were occasionally detected in subjects without malignancy.
Because previous reports suggest an association between aberrant methylation of TSGs and oncogenic viruses including SV40, we explored such a relationship in hematological cancers. Our previous studies indicated a relationship between the presence of SV40 and methylation of the RASSF1A gene in malignant mesotheliomas (4) and during transformation of mesothelial cells by the virus (5) . In our present studies, we found a highly significant relationship between the presence of SV40 viral sequences and promoter methylation in hematological malignancies for seven of the 10 TSGs analyzed. Because SV40 was absent and the MI was low in controls, these changes were characteristic of tumors. Because statistical analysis showed no relationship between EBV and methylation in lymphoma/leukemia the relationship was limited to SV40, although EBV has been associated with increased methylation rates in gastric cancers (21) . These findings indicate that EBV, may have different biological effects upon infection and transformation of different cell types. Although, the exact mechanism of aberrant methylation in SV40-positive cancers remains to be determined, the seven involved TSGs are located on five different chromosomal loci. Of interest, p16 and p15, which are located in tandem at chromosome 9p21, showed differential methylation, with p16, but not p15 being associated with SV40. Thus, SV40-associated hypermethylation is not a localized process restricted to one or a limited number of chromosomal loci but is a generalized process affecting CpG islands at multiple genomic sites. Promoter region methylation of multiple genes is a characteristic feature of all tumors (3) . As SV40 appears to be neither necessary nor sufficient to induce cancer (2) , methylation of some genes must also be present in tumors that are not virus associated. Thus, the virus-positive and -negative tumors had similar frequencies of methylation for three genes. These findings suggest that the methylation patterns of the two groups of tumors share certain similarities and differences, although our present study did not identify any genes whose methylation is characteristic of the virus-negative group.
Infection of PBMC with EBV resulted in lymphoblastoid transformation (14) , whereas infection with SV40 resulted in the appearance of attached cells with macrophage morphology. These cells underwent lysis, which was complete by 6 weeks after infection. These findings suggest that SV40 infection resulted in productive infection rather than transformation (2) . Dual infection with EBV and SV40 resulted in the appearance of a mixed population of nonadherent lymphoblastoid cells and adherent macrophage-like cells containing the sequences of both viruses. Of particular importance, promoter methylation of CDH1 and CDH13 was noted in dual SV40- and EBV-infected PBMC, and these two genes were highly significantly correlated to the presence of SV40 sequences in tumors. SV40 infection also resulted in methylation of the lymphoma/leukemia-specific marker SHP1. Methylation was completely absent in uninfected and EBV-infected PBMC, confirming the specific association between SV40 infection and methylation. Additionally, detection of methylation of SHP1in SV40-positive EBV PBMC (although not in PBMC infected with EBV alone) supports the hypothesis that SV40 might be a causative agent in hematological malignancies. By an incompletely understood mechanism, DNA methyltransferases cooperate to catalyze overlapping but individualized genomic DNA methylation profiles of different cancer types (3 , 22) . A recent report indicates that transformation of a model system by SV40 and RAS resulted in expression of DNMT3b, which correlated with methylation and silencing of several TSGs (23) . Expression of SV40 T-ag increases histone acetylation and global histone acetyltransferase actions (24) . Thus SV40 modulates both methylation and histone deacetylation, epigenetic processes that result in gene silencing. Our finding of a highly significant correlation between the presence of SV40 and aberrant methylation of multiple TSGs suggests that in all probability, the virus plays a role in tumor pathogenesis. These findings have considerable public health implications.
| FOOTNOTES |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Requests for reprints: Adi F. Gazdar, Building NB7-206, Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 6000 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75390-8593. Phone: (214) 648-4921; Fax: (214) 648-4940; E-mail: Adi.Gazdar{at}UTSouthwestern.edu
Received 10/24/03. Revised 3/16/04. Accepted 4/ 8/04.
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