| Summary |
Analysis of MCF-7 cells treated for 4h with Ethanol, Estradiol (E2), Dexamethasone (Dex), or Estradiol + Dexamethasone (E2 + Dex) In estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer (BC), high tumor glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression has been associated with a relatively poor outcome. In contrast, using a meta-analysis of several genomic datasets, here we find that tumor GR mRNA expression is associated with improved ER+ relapse-free survival (RFS) (independently of progesterone receptor (PR) expression). To understand the mechanism by which GR expression is associated with a better ER+ BC outcome, the global effect of GR-mediated transcriptional activation in ER+ BC cells was studied. Analysis of GR chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq) in ER+/GR+ MCF-7 cells revealed that upon co-activation of GR and ER, GR chromatin association became enriched at proximal promoter regions. Furthermore, following ER activation, increased association of GR was observed at ER, FOXO, and AP1 response elements. In addition, it was determined that ER associated with GR response elements, suggesting that ER and GR interact in a complex. Co-activation of GR and ER resulted in increased expression (relative to ER activation alone) of transcripts that encode proteins promoting cellular differentiation (e.g. KDM4B, VDR) and inhibiting Wnt-signaling (IGFBP4). Finally, expression of these individual pro-differentiation genes was associated with significantly improved RFS in ER+ BC patients. Together, these data demonstrate that the co-expression and subsequent activity of tumor cell GR and ER contribute to the less aggressive natural history of early-stage BC by coordinating the altered expression of genes favoring differentiation. |
