Gene repression through epigenetic modulation by PPARA enhances hepatocellular proliferation

Daisuke Aibara; Shogo Takahashi; Tomoki Yagai; Donghwan Kim; Chad N Brocker; Moshe Levi; Kimihiko Matsusue; Frank J Gonzalez

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104196

Gene repression through epigenetic modulation by PPARA enhances hepatocellular proliferation

iScience. 2022 Apr 4;25(5):104196. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104196. eCollection 2022 May 20.

Authors

Daisuke Aibara^{1

2}, Shogo Takahashi^{1

3}, Tomoki Yagai¹, Donghwan Kim¹, Chad N Brocker¹, Moshe Levi³, Kimihiko Matsusue², Frank J Gonzalez¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Metabolism, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
² Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, Fukuoka University, 8-19-1 Nanakuma, Jonan-ku, Fukuoka 814-0180, Japan.
³ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057, USA.

Abstract

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARA) is a key mediator of lipid metabolism and inflammation. Activation of PPARA in rodents causes hepatocyte proliferation, but the underlying mechanism is poorly understood. This study focused on genes repressed by PPARA and analyzed the mechanism by which PPARA promotes hepatocyte proliferation in mice. Activation of PPARA by agonist treatment was autoregulated, and induced expression of the epigenetic regulator UHRF1 via activation of the newly described PPARA target gene E2f8, which, in turn, regulates Uhrf1. UHRF1 strongly repressed the expression of CDH1 via methylation of the Cdh1 promoter marked with H3K9me3. Repression of CDH1 by PPARA activation was reversed by PPARA deficiency or knockdown of E2F8 or UHRF1. Furthermore, a forced expression of CDH1 inhibited expression of the Wnt signaling target genes such as Myc after PPARA activation, and suppressed hepatocyte hyperproliferation. These results demonstrate that the PPARA-E2F8-UHRF1-CDH1 axis causes epigenetic regulation of hepatocyte proliferation.

Keywords: Molecular biology; Molecular mechanism of gene regulation; Transcriptomics.