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BackgroundVarious proinflammatory cytokines can be detected within the melanoma tumor microenvironment. Interleukin 32 (IL32) is produced by T cells, NK cells and monocytes/macrophages, but also by a subset of melanoma cells. We sought to better understand the biology of IL32 in human melanoma.MethodsWe analyzed RNA sequencing data from 53 in-house established human melanoma cell lines and 479 melanoma tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset. We evaluated global gene expression patterns associated with IL32 expression. We also evaluated the impact of proinflammatory molecules TNFα and IFNγ on IL32 expression and dedifferentiation in melanoma cell lines in vitro. In order to study the transcriptional regulation of IL32 in these cell lines, we cloned up to 10.5 kb of the 5' upstream region of the human IL32 gene into a luciferase reporter vector.ResultsA significant proportion of established human melanoma cell lines express IL32, with its expression being highly correlated with a dedifferentiation genetic signature (high AXL/low MITF). Non IL32-expressing differentiated melanoma cell lines exposed to TNFα or IFNγ can be induced to express the three predominant isoforms (α, β, γ) of IL32. Cis-acting elements within this 5' upstream region of the human IL32 gene appear to govern both induced and constitutive gene expression. In the tumor microenvironment, IL32 expression is highly correlated with genes related to T cell infiltration, and also positively correlates with high AXL/low MITF dedifferentiated gene signature.ConclusionsExpression of IL32 in human melanoma can be induced by TNFα or IFNγ and correlates with a treatment-resistant dedifferentiated genetic signature. Constitutive and induced expression are regulated, in part, by cis-acting sequences within the 5' upstream region.

Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors recognize the canonical E-box (CANNTG) to regulate gene transcription; however, given the prevalence of E-boxes in a genome, it has been puzzling how individual bHLH proteins selectively recognize E-box sequences on their targets. TWIST is a bHLH transcription factor that promotes epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) during development and tumor metastasis. High-resolution mapping of TWIST occupancy in human and Drosophila genomes reveals that TWIST, but not other bHLH proteins, recognizes a unique double E-box motif with two E-boxes spaced preferentially by 5 nucleotides. Using molecular modeling and binding kinetic analyses, we found that the strict spatial configuration in the double E-box motif aligns two TWIST-E47 dimers on the same face of DNA, thus providing a high-affinity site for a highly stable intramolecular tetramer. Biochemical analyses showed that the WR domain of TWIST dimerizes to mediate tetramer formation, which is functionally required for TWIST-induced EMT. These results uncover a novel mechanism for a bHLH transcription factor to recognize a unique spatial configuration of E-boxes to achieve target specificity. The WR-WR domain interaction uncovered here sets an example of target gene specificity of a bHLH protein being controlled allosterically by a domain outside of the bHLH region.

The in vitro differentiation of ES cells towards a hematopoietic cell fate is useful when studying cell populations that are difficult to access in vivo and for characterizing the earliest genes involved in hematopoiesis, without having to deal with embryonic lethalities. The ES/OP9 co-culture system was originally designed to produce hematopoietic progeny, without the over production of macrophages, as the OP9 stromal cell line is derived from the calvaria of osteopetrosis mutant mice that lack functional M-CSF. The in vitro ES/OP9 co-culture system can be used in order to recapitulate early hematopoietic development. When cultured on OP9 stromal cells, ES cells differentiate into Flk-1+ hemangioblasts, hematopoietic progenitors, and finally mature, terminally differentiated lineages. The standard ES/OP9 co-culture protocol entails the placement of ES cells onto a confluent layer of OP9 cells; as well as, periodic replating steps in order to remove old, contaminating OP9 cells. Furthermore, current protocols involve evaluating only the hematopoietic cells found in suspension and are not optimized for evaluation of ES-derived progeny at each day of differentiation. However, with replating steps and the harvesting of only suspension cells one potentially misses a large portion of ES-derived progeny and developing hematopoietic cells. This issue becomes important to address when trying to characterize hematopoietic defects associated with knockout ES lines. Here we describe a modified ES/mStrawberry OP9 co-culture, which allows for the elimination of contaminating OP9 cells from downstream assays. This method allows for the complete evaluation of all ES-derived progeny at all days of co-culture, resulting in a hematopoietic differentiation pattern, which more directly corresponds to the hematopoietic differentiation pattern observed within the embryo.

An abstract of the article "rAAV-2 Transduction of Primitive Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells Capable of Serial Engraftment in Immune Deficient Mice," by Helicia Paz, Leah Santat, Lijing Li, Christie Wong, Stephen J. Forman, K. K. Wong and Saswati Chatterjee is presented.