JMJD2A attenuation affects cell cycle and tumourigenic inflammatory gene regulation in lipopolysaccharide stimulated neuroectodermal stem cells

• Significant up-regulation of epigenetic modifier JMJD2A mRNA upon LPS treatment.
• Inhibition of JMJD2A attenuated key inflammatory and tumourigenic genes.
• Establishing IPA based functional genomics in JMJD2A-attenuated p53−/− NE4C cells.
• Finding JMJD2A-based molecular targets and crucial pathways in p53−/− NE4C cells.

JMJD2A is a lysine trimethyl-specific histone demethylase that is highly expressed in a variety of tumours. The role of JMJD2A in tumour progression remains unclear. The objectives of this study were to identify JMJD2A-regulated genes and understand the function of JMJD2A in p53-null neuroectodermal stem cells (p53−/− NE-4Cs). We determined the effect of LPS as a model of inflammation in p53−/− NE-4Cs and investigated whether the epigenetic modifier JMJD2A alter the expression of tumourigenic inflammatory genes. Global gene expression was measured in JMJD2A knockdown (kd) p53−/− NE-4Cs and in LPS-stimulated JMJD2A-kd p53−/− NE-4C cells. JMJD2A attenuation significantly down-regulated genes were Cdca2, Ccnd2, Ccnd1, Crebbp, IL6rα, and Stat3 related with cell cycle, proliferation, and inflammatory-disease responses. Importantly, some tumour-suppressor genes including Dapk3, Timp2 and TFPI were significantly up-regulated but were not affected by silencing of the JMJD2B. Furthermore, we confirmed the attenuation of JMJD2A also down-regulated Cdca2, Ccnd2, Crebbp, and Rest in primary NSCs isolated from the forebrains of E15 embryos of C57/BL6J mice with effective p53 inhibitor pifithrin-α (PFT-α). Transcription factor (TF) motif analysis revealed known binding patterns for CDC5, MYC, and CREB, as well as three novel motifs in JMJD2A-regulated genes. IPA established molecular networks. The molecular network signatures and functional gene-expression profiling data from this study warrants further investigation as an effective therapeutic target, and studies to elucidate the molecular mechanism of JMJD2A-kd-dependent effects in neuroectodermal stem cells should be performed.