Inactivation of Cooperates with Losses of and to Drive the Development of Pleural Malignant Mesothelioma in Conditional Mouse Models.

Pleural malignant mesothelioma is a therapy-resistant cancer affecting the serosal lining of the thoracic cavity. Mutations/deletions of , and are the most frequent genetic lesions in human malignant mesothelioma. We introduced various combinations of these deletions in the pleura of conditional knockout (CKO) mice, focusing on the contribution of loss. While homozygous CKO of , or alone gave rise to few or no malignant mesotheliomas, inactivation of cooperated with loss of either or to drive development of malignant mesothelioma in approximately 20% of double-CKO mice, and a high incidence (22/26, 85%) of malignant mesotheliomas was observed in (triple)-CKO mice. Malignant mesothelioma onset was rapid in triple-CKO mice, with a median survival of only 12 weeks, and malignant mesotheliomas from these mice were consistently high-grade and invasive. Adenoviral-Cre treatment of normal mesothelial cells from CKO mice, but not from mice with knockout of one or any two of these genes, resulted in robust spheroid formation , suggesting that mesothelial cells from mice have stem cell-like potential. RNA-seq analysis of malignant mesotheliomas from triple-CKO mice revealed enrichment of genes transcriptionally regulated by the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) and others previously implicated in known Bap1-related cellular processes. These data demonstrate that somatic inactivation of , and results in rapid, aggressive malignant mesotheliomas, and that deletion of contributes to tumor development, in part, by loss of PRC2-mediated repression of tumorigenic target genes and by acquisition of stem cell potential, suggesting a potential avenue for therapeutic intervention. SIGNIFICANCE: Combinatorial deletions of , and result in aggressive mesotheliomas, with loss contributing to tumorigenesis by circumventing PRC2-mediated repression of oncogenic target genes.