COLO829 treatment with PLX4032 and/or MITF knockdown

Thousands of enhancers are characterized in the human genome, yet few have been shown important in cancer. Inhibiting oncokinases, such as EGFR, ALK, HER2, and BRAF, is a mainstay of current cancer therapy but is hindered by innate drug resistance mediated by upregulation of the HGF receptor, MET. The mechanisms mediating such genomic responses to targeted therapy are unknown. Here, we identify lineage-specific MET enhancers for multiple common tumor types, including a melanoma lineage-specific MET enhancer that displays inducible chromatin looping and MET gene induction upon BRAF inhibition. Epigenomic analysis demonstrated that the melanocyte-specific transcription factor, MITF, mediates this enhancer function. Targeted genomic deletion (<7bp) of the MITF motif within the MET enhancer suppressed inducible chromatin looping and innate drug resistance, while maintaining MITF-dependent, inhibitor-induced melanoma cell differentiation. Epigenomic analysis can thus guide functional disruption of regulatory DNA to decouple pro- and anti-oncogenic functions of tumor lineage-enriched transcription factors mediating innate resistance to oncokinase therapy.

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Webster DE, Barajas B, Bussat RT, Yan KJ, Neela PH, Flockhart RJ, Kovalski J, Zehnder A, Khavari PA