The Fas-FasL effector mechanism plays a key role in
cancer immune surveillance by host T cells, but metastatic human colon
carcinoma often uses silencing Fas expression as a mechanism of immune evasion. The molecular mechanism under FAS transcriptional silencing in human colon
carcinoma is unknown. We performed genome-wide
chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing analysis and identified that the FAS promoter is enriched with H3K9me3 in metastatic human colon
carcinoma cells. The H3K9me3 level in the FAS promoter region is significantly higher in metastatic than in primary
cancer cells, and it is inversely correlated with Fas expression level. We discovered that
verticillin A is a selective inhibitor of
histone methyltransferases SUV39H1, SUV39H2, and G9a/GLP that exhibit redundant functions in H3K9 trimethylation and FAS transcriptional silencing. Genome-wide gene expression analysis identified FAS as one of the
verticillin A target genes.
Verticillin A treatment decreased H3K9me3 levels in the FAS promoter and restored Fas expression. Furthermore,
verticillin A exhibited greater efficacy than
decitabine and
vorinostat in overcoming colon
carcinoma resistance to FasL-induced apoptosis.
Verticillin A also increased DR5 expression and overcame colon
carcinoma resistance to DR5 agonist
drozitumab-induced apoptosis. Interestingly,
verticillin A overcame metastatic colon
carcinoma resistance to
5-fluorouracil in vitro and in vivo. Using an orthotopic
colon cancer mouse model, we demonstrated that
tumor-infiltrating cytotoxic T lymphocytes are FasL(+) and that FasL-mediated
cancer immune surveillance is essential for colon
carcinoma growth control in vivo. Our findings determine that H3K9me3 of the FAS promoter is a dominant mechanism underlying FAS silencing and resultant colon
carcinoma immune evasion and progression.