Medulloblastoma'da kromatin değiştirici enzimlerin fonksiyonlarının incelenmesi

Medulloblastoma is the most common pediatric brain cancer and it consists of four main molecular subgroups, which are Wingless (WNT), Sonic Hedgehog (SHH), Group 3 and Group 4. These subgroups have different transcriptional, cytogenetic and mutational spectra, making medulloblastoma a complex disease. Current therapy protocols for medulloblastoma include surgical resection, craniospinal irradiation and chemotherapy. Although current treatments result in high overall survival, many survivors experience severe neurological disorders. Therefore, targeted and more efficient therapies are necessary for the treatment of medulloblastoma. Genomic studies revealed that several chromatin modifying enzymes (CMEs) such as histone methyltransferases (HMTs), histone demethylases (HDMs), histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs) are mutated and/or differentially expressed in medulloblastoma. However, the roles of CMEs in the initiation and progression of medulloblastomas are ill-defined. To this end, we mainly focused on the epigenetics of medulloblastoma to develop novel and more effective therapeutic options. Firstly, we investigate the roles of chromatin modifiers in medulloblastoma by utilizing a chemical library targeting different chromatin modifying enzymes. Our screen revealed some potential inhibitors, namely GSK-J4, IOX-1, Belinostat, Vorinostat, 5-Azacytidine, ML324, SGC0946, Trichostatin A and Chaetocin, that induced cell death in medulloblastoma cells significantly. To investigate whether these drugs are specific to cancer cells, we tested selected drugs in a dose-dependent manner in non-malignant BJ Fibroblasts and revealed that they were relatively non-toxic to normal cells. Since the roles of histone demethylases are barely defined in medulloblastoma, we focused on KDM6A and KDM6B, which are targets of GSK-J4 and IOX-1. To this end, we targeted KDM6A and KDM6B by shRNAs and examined whether their loss changed the growth rate medulloblastoma cells. However, we did not observe any changes in the proliferation rate of MB cells upon KDM6A and/or KDM6B loss. Although many medulloblastoma tumors respond to chemotherapy well, there are still many medulloblastoma patients who do not respond to standard of care chemotherapy. As it has been identified that many chromatin modifiers are mutated and/or differentially expressed in the most aggressive and metastatic subgroups (Group 3 and Group 4), we speculated whether chromatin modifiers play role in resistance of medulloblastoma cells to chemotherapeutic agents. From those, vincristine is the main chemotherapeutic agent used in different treatment protocols, we decided to establish a vincristine-resistant medulloblastoma cell line by dose-escalation method to elucidate the function of CMEs in therapy resistance. We performed another drug screen in parental and newly established vincristine-resistant cells and identified that 8 different HDAC inhibitors (Trichostatin A, Rocilinostat, CXD101, Tubastatin A HCl, Belinostat, Romidepsin, PCI-24781 and Mocetinostat), 2 histone demethylase inhibitors (IOX-1 and KDOBA67), 2 kinase inhibitors (5-Iodotubercidin, SGI-1776), MAZ1805 (Halofuginol) and MAZ1392 induced cell death both in parental and vincristine-resistant cells significantly. Besides, we performed combination treatment with epigenetic drugs and vincristine and discovered that A-395, CBP/BRD4, GSK-J5, GSK343, GSK864, LLY-507, OF-1, SGC-CBP30, SRT1720 and UNC2400 induced cell death of resistant populations when they were combined with vincristine.