SGSS05-NS3 as a potent SETD8 inhibitor that activates p53 pathway in Neuroblastoma

Purpose: The intergration of genetic and chemical screens identified SETD8 as a new druggable target in neuroblastoma tumor. The goal of this study is to evaluate the transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq) of Neuroblastoma cell lines after genetic and pharmacological inhibition of SETD8. Methods: mRNA profiles of NB cells after genetic and pharmacological inhibition of SETD8 were generated by deep sequencing in duplicate with Ilumina HiSeq2500 using Illumina TruSeq V4. The sequence reads were analyzed with software Trimmomatic, STAR and edgeR to determine the differetially expressed genes. qRT–PCR validation was performed using SYBR Green assays. Results: About 60 million sequence reads per sample were mapped to the human genome (hg19). Approximately 10% of the transcripts showed differential expression between the control and the treated samples, with a fold change ≥1.5 and p value <0.05. Altered expression of 12 genes was confirmed with qRT–PCR, demonstrating the high degree of sensitivity of the RNA-seq method. Hierarchical clustering of differentially expressed genes uncovered several as yet uncharacterized genes that may contribute to SETD8 function. Conclusions: Our study identifies SETD8 as a new therapeutic target in Neuroblastoma tumor. RNA-seq transcriptome analyses and functional studies revealed that SETD8 ablation rescued the proapoptotic and cell-cycle arrest functions of p53 through reactivation of the p53 canonical pathway by decreasing p53k382me1.