Abstract
Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant pediatric brain tumor. Dysregulation of WNT signaling occurs in up to 20% of cases. Using a genome-wide approach, we identified the secreted frizzled-related protein 1, 2 and 3 (SFRP1, SFRP2 and SFRP3) family of WNT inhibitors as putative tumor suppressor genes silenced by promoter region methylation in MB. SFRP1, SFRP2 and SFRP3 expression increased after 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine treatment. SFRP1, SFRP2 and SFRP3 methylation was identified in 23.5, 3.9 and 15.7% of primary MB specimens, respectively, by methylation-specific PCR. Stable SFRP1, SFRP2 and SFRP3 expression reduced phospho-DVL2 levels and hindered MB cell proliferation and colony formation in soft agar in vitro. In 60% of primary tumors, SFRP1 was expressed at levels twofold lower than that in normal cerebellum. SFRP1 expression impaired tumor formation in vivo in flank and orthotopic intracerebellar xenograft models and conferred a significant survival advantage (P<0.0001). We identify for the first time tumor suppressor gene function of SFRP genes in MB, and suggest that loss of WNT pathway inhibition due to SFRP gene silencing is an additional mechanism that may contribute to excessive WNT signaling in this disease.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 50 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $5.18 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baeza N, Masuoka J, Kleihues P, Ohgaki H . (2003). AXIN1 mutations but not deletions in cerebellar medulloblastomas. Oncogene 22: 632–636.
Bovolenta P, Esteve P, Ruiz JM, Cisneros E, Lopez-Rios J . (2008). Beyond Wnt inhibition: new functions of secreted Frizzled-related proteins in development and disease. J Cell Sci 121: 737–746.
Chang Q, Pang JC, Li KK, Poon WS, Zhou L, Ng HK . (2005). Promoter hypermethylation profile of RASSF1A, FHIT, and sFRP1 in intracranial primitive neuroectodermal tumors. Hum Pathol 36: 1265–1272.
Cowling VH, D'Cruz CM, Chodosh LA, Cole MD . (2007). c-Myc transforms human mammary epithelial cells through repression of the Wnt inhibitors DKK1 and SFRP1. Mol Cell Biol 27: 5135–5146.
Dahl E, Wiesmann F, Woenckhaus M, Stoehr R, Wild PJ, Veeck J et al. (2007). Frequent loss of SFRP1 expression in multiple human solid tumours: association with aberrant promoter methylation in renal cell carcinoma. Oncogene 26: 5680–5691.
Eberhart CG, Tihan T, Burger PC . (2000). Nuclear localization and mutation of beta-catenin in medulloblastomas. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol 59: 333–337.
Ellison DW, Onilude OE, Lindsey JC, Lusher ME, Weston CL, Taylor RE et al. (2005). beta-Catenin status predicts a favorable outcome in childhood medulloblastoma: the United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group Brain Tumour Committee. J Clin Oncol 23: 7951–7957.
Fan X, Eberhart CG . (2008). Medulloblastoma stem cells. J Clin Oncol 26: 2821–2827.
Gilbertson RJ, Ellison DW . (2008). The origins of medulloblastoma subtypes. Annu Rev Pathol 3: 341–365.
Habas R, Dawid IB . (2005). Dishevelled and Wnt signaling: is the nucleus the final frontier? J Biol 4: 2.
Hamilton SR, Liu B, Parsons RE, Papadopoulos N, Jen J, Powell SM et al. (1995). The molecular basis of Turcot's syndrome. N Engl J Med 332: 839–847.
Katoh Y, Katoh M . (2006). WNT antagonist, SFRP1, is Hedgehog signaling target. Int J Mol Med 17: 171–175.
Koch A, Hrychyk A, Hartmann W, Waha A, Mikeska T, Schuller U et al. (2007). Mutations of the Wnt antagonist AXIN2 (Conductin) result in TCF-dependent transcription in medulloblastomas. Int J Cancer 121: 284–291.
Kongkham PN, Northcott PA, Ra YS, Nakahara Y, Mainprize TG, Croul SE et al. (2008). An epigenetic genome-wide screen identifies SPINT2 as a novel tumor suppressor gene in pediatric medulloblastoma. Cancer Res 68: 9945–9953.
Kool M, Koster J, Bunt J, Hasselt NE, Lakeman A, van Sluis P et al. (2008). Integrated genomics identifies five medulloblastoma subtypes with distinct genetic profiles, pathway signatures and clinicopathological features. PLoS ONE 3: e3088.
Lee Y, Miller HL, Jensen P, Hernan R, Connelly M, Wetmore C et al. (2003). A molecular fingerprint for medulloblastoma. Cancer Res 63: 5428–5437.
McMahon AP, Bradley A . (1990). The Wnt-1 (int-1) proto-oncogene is required for development of a large region of the mouse brain. Cell 62: 1073–1085.
Northcott PA, Fernandez LA, Hagan JP, Ellison DW, Grajkowska W, Gillespie Y et al. (2009a). The miR-17/92 polycistron is up-regulated in sonic hedgehog-driven medulloblastomas and induced by N-myc in sonic hedgehog-treated cerebellar neural precursors. Cancer Res 69: 3249–3255.
Northcott PA, Nakahara Y, Wu X, Feuk L, Ellison DW, Croul S et al. (2009b). Multiple recurrent genetic events converge on control of histone lysine methylation in medulloblastoma. Nat Genet 41: 465–472.
Suzuki H, Watkins DN, Jair KW, Schuebel KE, Markowitz SD, Chen WD et al. (2004). Epigenetic inactivation of SFRP genes allows constitutive WNT signaling in colorectal cancer. Nat Genet 36: 417–422.
Thompson MC, Fuller C, Hogg TL, Dalton J, Finkelstein D, Lau CC et al. (2006). Genomics identifies medulloblastoma subgroups that are enriched for specific genetic alterations. J Clin Oncol 24: 1924–1931.
Vibhakar R, Foltz G, Yoon JG, Field L, Lee H, Ryu GY et al. (2007). Dickkopf-1 is an epigenetically silenced candidate tumor suppressor gene in medulloblastoma. Neuro Oncol 9: 135–144.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from the Canadian Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute of Canada (019073), the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, the Wiley Fund at the Hospital for Sick Children and B.r.a.i.n.child. James Rutka is a scientist of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Paul Kongkham was supported by the Surgeon Scientist Program (University of Toronto), the National Cancer Institute of Canada Terry Fox Foundation clinical research fellowship and a research studentship from RESTRACOMP, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Oncogene website
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kongkham, P., Northcott, P., Croul, S. et al. The SFRP family of WNT inhibitors function as novel tumor suppressor genes epigenetically silenced in medulloblastoma. Oncogene 29, 3017–3024 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2010.32
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/onc.2010.32
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
Single-cell profiling of human subventricular zone progenitors identifies SFRP1 as a target to re-activate progenitors
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Integrated computational analyses reveal novel insights into the stromal microenvironment of SHH-subtype medulloblastoma
Scientific Reports (2021)
-
Medulloblastoma epigenetics and the path to clinical innovation
Journal of Neuro-Oncology (2020)
-
Computationally Design of Inhibitory Peptides Against Wnt Signaling Pathway: In Silico Insight on Complex of DKK1 and LRP6
International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics (2018)
-
Reduced hydroxymethylation characterizes medulloblastoma while TET and IDH genes are differentially expressed within molecular subgroups
Journal of Neuro-Oncology (2018)