EYA4 is inactivated biallelically at a high frequency in sporadic lung cancer and is associated with familial lung cancer risk

• Published in: Oncogene Vol. 33; no. 36; pp. 4464 - 4473
• Main Authors: Wilson, I M, Vucic, E A, Enfield, K S S, Thu, K L, Zhang, Y A, Chari, R, Lockwood, W W, Radulovich, N, Starczynowski, D T, Banáth, J P, Zhang, M, Pusic, A, Fuller, M, Lonergan, K M, Rowbotham, D, Yee, J, English, J C, Buys, T P H, Selamat, S A, Laird-Offringa, I A, Liu, P, Anderson, M, You, M, Tsao, M S, Brown, C J, Bennewith, K L, MacAulay, C E, Karsan, A, Gazdar, A F, Lam, S, Lam, W L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 04.09.2014; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 631/337/176/1988; 631/67/581; 692/699/67/1612/1350; Apoptosis; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - epidemiology; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung - genetics; Cell Biology; Chromosome 6; Chromosomes, Human, Pair 6; Development and progression; DNA Methylation; DNA repair; Epigenesis, Genetic; Esterases; Gene Deletion; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; Gene Frequency; Gene Silencing; Genes, Tumor Suppressor; Genetic aspects; Genetic Association Studies; Genetic Variation; Genetics; Genome, Human; Genomes; Human Genetics; Humans; Identification and classification; Internal Medicine; Invasiveness; Lung cancer; Lung cancer, Non-small cell; Lung Neoplasms - genetics; Lung Neoplasms - pathology; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Non-small cell lung carcinoma; Oncology; original-article; Polymorphism; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Risk factors; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; Small cell lung carcinoma; Susceptibility; Trans-Activators - genetics; Trans-Activators - metabolism; Tumor Cells, Cultured; Tumor suppressor genes; Tumorigenesis; Tumors; two hit; tumor suppressor; TSG; hypermethylation; non-small-cell lung cancer
• ISSN: 0950-9232; 1476-5594
• DOI: 10.1038/onc.2013.396

In an effort to identify novel biallelically inactivated tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) in sporadic invasive and preinvasive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) genomes, we applied a comprehensive integrated multiple ‘omics’ approach to investigate patient-matched, paired NSCLC tumor and non-malignant parenchymal tissues. By surveying lung tumor genomes for genes concomitantly inactivated within individual tumors by multiple mechanisms, and by the frequency of disruption in tumors across multiple cohorts, we have identified a putative lung cancer TSG, Eyes Absent 4 ( EYA4 ). EYA4 is frequently and concomitantly deleted, hypermethylated and underexpressed in multiple independent lung tumor data sets, in both major NSCLC subtypes and in the earliest stages of lung cancer. We found that decreased EYA4 expression is not only associated with poor survival in sporadic lung cancers but also that EYA4 single-nucleotide polymorphisms are associated with increased familial cancer risk, consistent with EYA4 s proximity to the previously reported lung cancer susceptibility locus on 6q. Functionally, we found that EYA4 displays TSG-like properties with a role in modulating apoptosis and DNA repair. Cross-examination of EYA4 expression across multiple tumor types suggests a cell-type-specific tumorigenic role for EYA4 , consistent with a tumor suppressor function in cancers of epithelial origin. This work shows a clear role for EYA4 as a putative TSG in NSCLC.