Breast Cancer Metastasis Suppressor 1 Functions as a Corepressor by Enhancing Histone Deacetylase 1-Mediated Deacetylation of RelA/p65 and Promoting Apoptosis

Abstract

The antiapoptotic transcription factor NF-κB is constitutively activated in many cancers and is important for cytokine-mediated progression and metastatic movement of tumors. Breast cancer metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1) is a metastasis suppressor gene whose mechanisms of action are poorly understood. In this report, we demonstrate that BRMS1 decreases the transactivation potential of RelA/p65 and ameliorates the expression of NF-κB-regulated antiapoptotic gene products. BRMS1 immunoprecipitates with the RelA/p65 subunit of NF-κB with protein-protein interactions occurring at the C terminus region of the rel homology domain but not at its known transactivation domains. Moreover, BRMS1 functions as a corepressor by promoting binding of HDAC1 to RelA/p65, where it deacetylates lysine K310 on RelA/p65, which suppresses RelA/p65 transcriptional activity. Selective small interfering RNA knockdown of BRMS1 confirms that chromatin-bound BRMS1 is required for deacetylation of RelA/p65, while enhancing chromatin occupancy of HDAC1 onto the NF-κB-regulated promoters cIAP2 and Bfl-1/A1. We observed in cells lacking BRMS1 a dramatic increase in cell viability after the loss of attachment from the extracellular matrix. Collectively, these results suggest that BRMS1 suppresses metastasis through its ability to function as a transcriptional corepressor of antiapoptotic genes regulated by NF-κB.

Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://mcb.asm.org/.

We thank Marty W. Mayo (University of Virginia) for his review of the manuscript and for constructive comments.

This study was supported in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research (D.R.J.) and by NIH Surgery Research Training grant T32 HL007849 (P.W.S.).