Identification of proteins related to epigenetic regulation in the malignant transformation of aberrant karyotypic human embryonic stem cells by quantitative proteomics

PLoS One. 2014 Jan 17;9(1):e85823. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085823. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Previous reports have demonstrated that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) tend to develop genomic alterations and progress to a malignant state during long-term in vitro culture. This raises concerns of the clinical safety in using cultured hESCs. However, transformed hESCs might serve as an excellent model to determine the process of embryonic stem cell transition. In this study, ITRAQ-based tandem mass spectrometry was used to quantify normal and aberrant karyotypic hESCs proteins from simple to more complex karyotypic abnormalities. We identified and quantified 2583 proteins, and found that the expression levels of 316 proteins that represented at least 23 functional molecular groups were significantly different in both normal and abnormal hESCs. Dysregulated protein expression in epigenetic regulation was further verified in six pairs of hESC lines in early and late passage. In summary, this study is the first large-scale quantitative proteomic analysis of the malignant transformation of aberrant karyotypic hESCs. The data generated should serve as a useful reference of stem cell-derived tumor progression. Increased expression of both HDAC2 and CTNNB1 are detected as early as the pre-neoplastic stage, and might serve as prognostic markers in the malignant transformation of hESCs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blotting, Western
  • Cell Line
  • Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / genetics*
  • Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / pathology*
  • Cluster Analysis
  • DNA Copy Number Variations / genetics
  • Embryonic Stem Cells / metabolism*
  • Epigenesis, Genetic*
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Humans
  • Isotope Labeling
  • Karyotyping*
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Mice
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Neoplasm Proteins / genetics
  • Neoplasm Proteins / metabolism*
  • Proteome / metabolism
  • Proteomics
  • Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Transcriptome / genetics

Substances

  • Neoplasm Proteins
  • Proteome

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program 2011CB964900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81101510), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (14JJ2004 and 09JJ4009), the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (200805331133), National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 program 2006AA02A102), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (201012200219). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.