Efficient activation of hundreds of LTR12C elements reveals cis-regulatory function determined by distinct epigenetic mechanisms.

Long terminal repeats (LTRs), which often contain promoter and enhancer sequences of intact endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), are known to be co-opted as cis-regulatory elements for fine-tuning host-coding gene expression. Since LTRs are mainly silenced by the deposition of repressive epigenetic marks, substantial activation of LTRs has been found in human cells after treatment with epigenetic inhibitors. Although the LTR12C family makes up the majority of ERVs activated by epigenetic inhibitors, how these epigenetically and transcriptionally activated LTR12C elements can regulate the host-coding gene expression remains unclear due to genome-wide alteration of transcriptional changes after epigenetic inhibitor treatments. Here, we specifically transactivated >600 LTR12C elements by using single guide RNA-based dCas9-SunTag-VP64, a site-specific targeting CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) system, with minimal off-target events. Interestingly, most of the transactivated LTR12C elements acquired the H3K27ac-marked enhancer feature, while only 20% were co-marked with promoter-associated H3K4me3 modifications. The enrichment of the H3K4me3 signal was intricately associated with downstream regions of LTR12C, such as internal regions of intact ERV9 or other types of retrotransposons. Here, we leverage an optimized CRISPRa system to identify two distinct epigenetic signatures that define LTR12C transcriptional activation, which modulate the expression of proximal protein-coding genes.

Using long-read CAGE sequencing to profile cryptic-promoter-derived transcripts and their contribution to the immunopeptidome.

Recent studies have shown that the noncoding genome can produce unannotated proteins as antigens that induce immune response. One major source of this activity is the aberrant epigenetic reactivation of transposable elements (TEs). In tumors, TEs often provide cryptic or alternate promoters, which can generate transcripts that encode tumor-specific unannotated proteins. Thus, TE-derived transcripts (TE transcripts) have the potential to produce tumor-specific, but recurrent, antigens shared among many tumors. Identification of TE-derived tumor antigens holds the promise to improve cancer immunotherapy approaches; however, current genomics and computational tools are not optimized for their detection. Here we combined CAGE technology with full-length long-read transcriptome sequencing (long-read CAGE, or LRCAGE) and developed a suite of computational tools to significantly improve immunopeptidome detection by incorporating TE and other tumor transcripts into the proteome database. By applying our methods to human lung cancer cell line H1299 data, we show that long-read technology significantly improves mapping of promoters with low mappability scores and that LRCAGE guarantees accurate construction of uncharacterized 5' transcript structure. Augmenting a reference proteome database with newly characterized transcripts enabled us to detect noncanonical antigens from HLA-pulldown LC-MS/MS data. Lastly, we show that epigenetic treatment increased the number of noncanonical antigens, particularly those encoded by TE transcripts, which might expand the pool of targetable antigens for cancers with low mutational burden.

A Phase II Trial of Guadecitabine plus Atezolizumab in Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma Progressing after Initial Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy.

PURPOSE: On the basis of preclinical evidence of epigenetic contribution to sensitivity and resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), we hypothesized that guadecitabine (hypomethylating agent) and atezolizumab [anti-programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)] together would potentiate a clinical response in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC) unresponsive to initial immune checkpoint blockade therapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We designed a single arm phase II study (NCT03179943) with a safety run-in to identify the recommended phase II dose of the combination therapy of guadecitabine and atezolizumab. Patients with recurrent/advanced UC who had previously progressed on ICI therapy with programmed cell death protein 1 or PD-L1 targeting agents were eligible. Preplanned correlative analysis was performed to characterize peripheral immune dynamics and global DNA methylation, transcriptome, and immune infiltration dynamics of patient tumors. RESULTS: Safety run-in enrolled 6 patients and phase II enrolled 15 patients before the trial was closed for futility. No dose-limiting toxicity was observed. Four patients, with best response of stable disease (SD), exhibited extended tumor control (8-11 months) and survival (>14 months). Correlative analysis revealed lack of DNA demethylation in tumors after 2 cycles of treatment. Increased peripheral immune activation and immune infiltration in tumors after treatment correlated with progression-free survival and SD. Furthermore, high IL6 and IL8 levels in the patients' plasma was associated with short survival. CONCLUSIONS: No RECIST responses were observed after combination therapy in this trial. Although we could not detect the anticipated tumor-intrinsic effects of guadecitabine, the addition of hypomethylating agent to ICI therapy induced immune activation in a few patients, which associated with longer patient survival.

Pan-cancer analysis identifies tumor-specific antigens derived from transposable elements.

Cryptic promoters within transposable elements (TEs) can be transcriptionally reactivated in tumors to create new TE-chimeric transcripts, which can produce immunogenic antigens. We performed a comprehensive screen for these TE exaptation events in 33 TCGA tumor types, 30 GTEx adult tissues and 675 cancer cell lines, and identified 1,068 TE-exapted candidates with the potential to generate shared tumor-specific TE-chimeric antigens (TS-TEAs). Whole-lysate and HLA-pulldown mass spectrometry data confirmed that TS-TEAs are presented on the surface of cancer cells. In addition, we highlight tumor-specific membrane proteins transcribed from TE promoters that constitute aberrant epitopes on the extracellular surface of cancer cells. Altogether, we showcase the high pan-cancer prevalence of TS-TEAs and atypical membrane proteins that could potentially be therapeutically exploited and targeted.

RNA mis-splicing drives viral mimicry response after DNMTi therapy in SETD2-mutant kidney cancer.

Tumors with mutations in chromatin regulators present attractive targets for DNA hypomethylating agent 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (DAC) therapy, which further disrupts cancer cells' epigenomic fidelity and reactivates transposable element (TE) expression to drive viral mimicry responses. SETD2 encodes a histone methyltransferase (H3K36me3) and is prevalently mutated in advanced kidney cancers. Here, we show that SETD2-mutant kidney cancer cells are especially sensitive in vitro and in vivo to DAC treatment. We find that the viral mimicry response are direct consequences of mis-splicing events, such as exon inclusions or extensions, triggered by DAC treatment in an SETD2-loss context. Comprehensive epigenomic analysis reveals H3K9me3 deposition, rather than DNA methylation dynamics, across intronic TEs might contribute to elevated mis-splicing rates. Through epigenomic and transcriptomic analyses, we show that SETD2-deficient kidney cancers are prone to mis-splicing, which can be therapeutically exacerbated with DAC treatment to increase viral mimicry activation and provide synergy with combinatorial immunotherapy approaches.