1. Academic Validation
  2. EZH2 is required for germinal center formation and somatic EZH2 mutations promote lymphoid transformation

EZH2 is required for germinal center formation and somatic EZH2 mutations promote lymphoid transformation

  • Cancer Cell. 2013 May 13;23(5):677-92. doi: 10.1016/j.ccr.2013.04.011.
Wendy Béguelin 1 Relja Popovic Matt Teater Yanwen Jiang Karen L Bunting Monica Rosen Hao Shen Shao Ning Yang Ling Wang Teresa Ezponda Eva Martinez-Garcia Haikuo Zhang Yupeng Zheng Sharad K Verma Michael T McCabe Heidi M Ott Glenn S Van Aller Ryan G Kruger Yan Liu Charles F McHugh David W Scott Young Rock Chung Neil Kelleher Rita Shaknovich Caretha L Creasy Randy D Gascoyne Kwok-Kin Wong Leandro Cerchietti Ross L Levine Omar Abdel-Wahab Jonathan D Licht Olivier Elemento Ari M Melnick
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10021, USA.
Abstract

The EZH2 Histone Methyltransferase is highly expressed in germinal center (GC) B cells and targeted by somatic mutations in B cell lymphomas. Here, we find that EZH2 deletion or pharmacologic inhibition suppresses GC formation and functions. EZH2 represses proliferation checkpoint genes and helps establish bivalent chromatin domains at key regulatory loci to transiently suppress GC B cell differentiation. Somatic mutations reinforce these physiological effects through enhanced silencing of EZH2 targets. Conditional expression of mutant EZH2 in mice induces GC hyperplasia and accelerated lymphomagenesis in cooperation with BCL2. GC B cell (GCB)-type diffuse large B cell lymphomas (DLBCLs) are mostly addicted to EZH2 but not the more differentiated activated B cell (ABC)-type DLBCLs, thus clarifying the therapeutic scope of EZH2 targeting.

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