The scaffold attachment factors SAFB1 and SAFB2 are paralogs, which are involved in cell cycle regulation, apoptosis, differentiation, and stress response. They have been shown to function as estrogen receptor corepressors, and there is evidence for a role in breast tumorigenesis. To identify their endogenous target genes in MCF-7 breast cancer cells, we utilized a combined approach of chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-on-chip and gene expression array studies. By performing ChIP-on-chip on microarrays containing 24,000 promoters, we identified 541 SAFB1/SAFB2-binding sites in promoters of known genes, with significant enrichment on chromosomes 1 and 6. Gene expression analysis revealed that the majority of target genes were induced in the absence of SAFB1 or SAFB2 and less were repressed. Interestingly, there was no significant overlap between the genes identified by ChIP-on-chip and gene expression array analysis, suggesting regulation through regions outside the proximal promoters. In contrast to SAFB2, which shared most of its target genes with SAFB1, SAFB1 had many unique target genes, most of them involved in the regulation of the immune system. A subsequent analysis of the estrogen treatment group revealed that 12% of estrogen-regulated genes were dependent on SAFB1, with the majority being estrogen-repressed genes. These were primarily genes involved in apoptosis, such as BBC3, NEDD9, and OPG. Thus, this study confirms the primary role of SAFB1/SAFB2 as corepressors and also uncovers a previously unknown role for SAFB1 in the regulation of immune genes and in estrogen-mediated repression of genes.
The estrogen receptor ␣ (ER␣)3 plays a pivotal role in both normal and pathophysiological processes, such as osteoporosis and breast cancer (1). The transcriptional activity of ER␣ is not only regulated by its ligand estrogen but also through its interaction with cofactors, which can either enhance (coactivators) or repress (corepressors) its activity (2). Briefly, upon binding of its ligand, ER␣ undergoes major structural rearrangements leading to exposure of binding surfaces that subsequently results in facilitated recruitment of different coactivators, including histone acetyltransferases or histone methyltransferases, and proteins from the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex (3). In the absence of ligand, recruitment of corepressors results in the creation of locally repressed chromatin, subsequently resulting in inhibition of transcription (4).Our group has identified the scaffold attachment factors SAFB1 and SAFB2 as ER␣ corepressors (5, 6). The two proteins are paralogs that share 74% similarity at the amino acid levels, with up to 98% in some functional domains (7). The genes reside in close proximity on chromosome 19p13.3, oriented in a head-to-head orientation, separated by an ϳ500-bp GC-rich promoter (6). The C termini of the proteins harbor a repression domain that can refer repression when transferred to a heterologous DNA-binding protein. This repression domain can be further defined into two ...