| First Author | Hwang-Verslues WW | Year | 2013 |
| Journal | Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A | Volume | 110 |
| Issue | 30 | Pages | 12331-6 |
| PubMed ID | 23836662 | Mgi Jnum | J:198788 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:5499230 | Doi | 10.1073/pnas.1222684110 |
| Citation | Hwang-Verslues WW, et al. (2013) Loss of corepressor PER2 under hypoxia up-regulates OCT1-mediated EMT gene expression and enhances tumor malignancy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 110(30):12331-6 |
| abstractText | The circadian clock gene Period2 (PER2) has been suggested to be a tumor suppressor. However, detailed mechanistic evidence has not been provided to support this hypothesis. We found that loss of PER2 enhanced invasion and activated expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) genes including TWIST1, SLUG, and SNAIL. This finding was corroborated by clinical observation that PER2 down-regulation was associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. We further demonstrated that PER2 served as a transcriptional corepressor, which recruited polycomb proteins EZH2 and SUZ12 as well as HDAC2 to octamer transcription factor 1 (OCT1) (POU2F1) binding sites of the TWIST1 and SLUG promoters to repress expression of these EMT genes. Hypoxia, a condition commonly observed in tumors, caused PER2 degradation and disrupted the PER2 repressor complex, leading to activation of EMT gene expression. This result was further supported by clinical data showing a significant negative correlation between hypoxia and PER2. Thus, our findings clearly demonstrate the tumor suppression function of PER2 and elucidate a pathway by which hypoxia promotes EMT via degradation of PER2. |
