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Posts by Adrian Bracken

πŸ“… Webinar reminder!

Join us this Friday for @kjarmache.bsky.social webinar.

More details below, or you can register here for free: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

@activemotifusa.bsky.social

1 day ago 2 2 0 0
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Hands up if you love chromatin & structural biology πŸ™‹β€β™‚οΈ

On Friday April 24th we will be joined by @kjarmache.bsky.social from NYU for his webinar 'Chromatin-Modifying Complexes in Gene Activation and Silencing'.

Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

@activemotifusa.bsky.social

1 week ago 16 9 1 1
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⏰ Calling all chromatin aficionados!

We we will be joined by @adelmanlab.bsky.social from @harvardmed.bsky.social for our March 27th webinar πŸ“…

Karen will be sharing her groups work on 'Transcription & RNA Quality Control in Health & Disease' 😷🧬

Register here: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

1 month ago 16 7 0 2

Only 24 hours to go to our next webinar with @brianstrahl.bsky.social !

Make sure to register for free through link below πŸ‘‡

1 month ago 3 3 0 0
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We are delighted to launch the (free!) registration for our 5th AICC symposium, hosted this year in @ucddublin.bsky.social on May 27th.

If you are interested in chromatin, gene regulation or the nucleus please join us!

allirelandchromatinconsortium.ie/annual-meeti...

2 months ago 11 8 1 3

Just one week to go until Edith Heard will be joining us for the All-Ireland Chromatin Consortium webinar on 'The Epigenetic Dynamics of X Inactivation in Development and Disease' 🧬

Registration link: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

2 months ago 4 4 0 0
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@adrianbracken.bsky.social we are looking forward to your presentation at our #FusionEpigenetics meeting in Portugal this October!
Please share this with your followers to let them know you will speaking, and to register & submit today to join us
πŸ”— bit.ly/4rC6B45

2 months ago 2 1 0 0
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SS18-SSX co-opts P300 to sustain oncogenic transcription independent of SWI/SNF activity Synovial sarcoma is driven by the SS18-SSX fusion oncoprotein, which has been assumed to promote tumorigenesis through its incorporation into the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complexes. Accordingly, therapeutic efforts have focused on targeting SS18-SSX containing SWI/SNF assemblies, yet these approaches have produced limited clinical benefit. Here, we demonstrate that SS18-SSX sustains oncogenic transcription independent of SWI/SNF activity. Despite efficient degradation and dismantling of SWI/SNF complexes, fusion occupancy at target loci and associated gene expression programs remain largely intact. Instead, we identify the acetyltransferase P300 as an essential co-factor supporting SS18-SSX chromatin binding and transcriptional activation. Targeting P300 displaces the fusion from chromatin, suppresses its transcriptional output, compromising synovial sarcoma viability. Notably, dual PROTAC mediated degradation of P300 and SWI/SNF produces strong synergistic effects, broadly disrupting SS18-SSX localization and function. These findings redefine the mechanistic basis of synovial sarcoma and reveal a mechanistically anchored therapeutic strategy for targeting its core oncogenic driver. ### Competing Interest Statement C.R.V. has been a consultant for Flare Therapeutics, Roivant Sciences and C4 Therapeutics; has served on the advisory boards of KSQ Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals and Treeline Biosciences; has received research funding from Boehringer Ingelheim and Treeline Biosciences; and owns stock in Treeline Biosciences. S.A.A. has been a consultant and/or shareholder for Neomorph, Imago Biosciences, Hyku Therapeutics, C4 Therapeutics, Accent Therapeutics and Nimbus Therapeutics; and has received research support from Janssen and Syndax. N.O.C. is a co-founder, shareholder and management consultant for PhenoTherapeutics Ltd; and a shareholder in Amplia Therapeutics Ltd All other authors declare no financial interests UKRI, EP/X039633/1 Worldwide Cancer Research, https://ror.org/031tfbz57, 21-0271 Science Foundation Ireland, https://ror.org/0271asj38, 18/SIRG/5573

Synovial sarcoma is driven almost exclusively by a single oncofusion – SS18-SSX

For years, the assumptions on disease mechanisms were simple:

➑️ SS18-SSX works by hijacking SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling activity

Our new study shows that assumption was wrong πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 months ago 30 12 2 3
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After a short break in our webinars we are delighted to be back up & running this month!

First up, on Jan 30th we will be joined by @lucas.farnunglab.com from @harvardmed.bsky.social πŸ”¬

Shortly after, on Feb 13th we will be hosting @heardlab.bsky.social from @crick.ac.uk 🧬

Registration details πŸ‘‡

3 months ago 11 6 1 5
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Two alternative isoforms of PRC2 accessory subunit AEBP2 modulate developmental Polycomb functions in opposite ways - with broadly-expressed AEBP2L acting as an intrinsic inhibitor in somatic cells
@adrianbracken.bsky.social @davidovichlab.bsky.social and colleagues
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

5 months ago 13 5 0 1
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For the love of frontier research, or why Elon’s rockets keep blowing up | EMBO reports EMBO Press is an editorially independent publishing platform for the development of EMBO scientific publications.

www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

4 months ago 1 1 0 0

We are delighted that @genesdev.bsky.social have selected our (w/ @adrianbracken.bsky.social) Weaver syndrome paper artwork as the November cover! This piece was made by my incredibly talented niece, Gina 'Dna Vinci' Ronan.

@ucddublin.bsky.social @tcddublin.bsky.social @ucd-sbbs.bsky.social

5 months ago 15 5 1 0

Thanks KJ. You’re exactly right. Since AEBP2-L is the broadly expressed isoform, it needs to get more attention. Chen’s lab did a great job of figuring out how its disordered N-terminal region works. What’s also cool is that it binds to PRC2 without JARID2 in many somatic cell types

5 months ago 3 0 0 0

16/ πŸ“– Again, please check out the full paper here: surl.li/cgwqcq

Huge thanks again to all collaborators and co-authors who made this project possible! πŸ™

5 months ago 1 0 0 0

15/ This work highlights how evolution created a regulatory switch within a single protein isoform to restrain PRC2 activity in somatic tissues β€” a major step toward understanding PRC2 regulation during development, but also has relevance in terms of PRC2 dysregulation in cancer surl.li/jkrdbt

5 months ago 0 0 1 0

14/ πŸ’‘ Key insight: We found that AEBP2-L ⏸️ acts as a brake on PRC2 in somatic cells, whereas AEBP2-S ⚑ boosts PRC2, but is only present in very early development.

Since most studies focus on AEBP2-S, we feel it's time the broadly expressed AEBP2-L πŸ‘€ gets the attention it deserves!

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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13/ βš™οΈ Mechanistically, AEBP2-L contains a mammalian-specific, disordered N-terminal region with acidic tracts that we find inhibit PRC2 binding to chromatin. Mutations that neutralize this region relieve inhibition and boost H3K27 methyltransferase activity:

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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12/ Interestingly, across mouse & human tissues, AEBP2-L is the predominant isoform from early embryogenesis, and broadly expressed.

Strikingly, the AEBP2-S isoform, which most labs study, is barely expressed beyond very early development!! 🀯

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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11/ We next wished to explore PRC2 integrity in the absence of AEBP2 isoforms with @michielvermeulen.bsky.social. We found that while loss of either isoform reduced JARID2 incorporation, JARID2 can associate with PRC2.2 with either isoform or even without both

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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10/ Indeed, loss of AEBP2-S KO impaired repression of 398 genes normally silenced by PRC2 during differentiation, whereas loss of AEBP2-L did not cause any defect

5 months ago 0 0 1 0

9/ If AEBP2-L acts like a Trithorax group protein, could AEBP2-S act like a Polycomb group protein? πŸ€” We examined the roles of both isoforms during naive-to-primed pluripotency differentiation, which we previously used to study JARID2 during differentiation pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37030288/

5 months ago 0 0 1 0

8/ Notably, complete loss of AEBP2 (both isoforms) was shown by Brockdorff & Cooper (2016) to produce a Trithorax phenotype in mice, accompanied by increased PRC2 and H3K27me3 at target genes ⬆️

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27317809/

5 months ago 1 0 1 0
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7/ AEBP2-L acts like a Trithorax group protein! 😲 We found that loss of AEBP2-L, but not AEBP2-S, increases ⬆️ PRC2 binding and H3K27me3 deposition on PcG target genes, mirroring the effect of losing both isoforms

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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6/ Next, to avoid any potential overexpression issues, we used CRISPR πŸ§¬βœ‚οΈ to KO either the short, the long or both isoforms in mouse ESCs:

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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5/ We then confirmed in cells that ectopically expressed AEBP2-L does not binds PcG target genes as well as AEBP2-S. Curiously, ectopic overexpression of AEBP2-L, but not AEBP2-S, reduced overall SUZ12 (PRC2) binding ⬇️⬆️

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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4/ πŸ”We focused on AEBP2, a PRC2 accessory subunit with two isoforms: AEBP2-S (short) and AEBP2-L (long).

Strikingly, we found AEBP2-L inhibits DNA binding by PRC2, whereas AEBP2-S promotes it:

5 months ago 0 0 1 0
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3/ PRC2 is a chromatin repressor complex essential for development and deregulated in disease. While several accessory proteins enhance PRC2, no endogenous inhibitor in somatic cells had been identified β€” until now! ⚑️

5 months ago 0 0 1 0

2/ 🧡🌍 Firstly, a huge thank you to first authors Marlena Mucha, Zhihao Lai, Nicholas McKenzie, Francesca Matra. This was a joint effort with @davidovichlab.bsky.social with wonderful collaborations with labs at Radboud, NKI, USC & Garvan Institute πŸ™πŸ§΅

5 months ago 1 0 1 0
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1/ πŸš€ AEBP2 isn’t what we thought.

You were told that AEBP2 promotes PRC2 activity on chromatin.

We found the opposite: the most prevalent AEBP2 isoform inhibits PRC2 activity.

πŸ‘‰ surl.li/cgwqcq

A thread 🧡

5 months ago 40 16 6 2

Absolutely delighted to share our preprint, using functional genomics to uncover a novel dependency in lymphoma that can overcome resistance to targeted therapy. Grateful to co-first author @jamesnolan.bsky.social and co-senior authors @conwayer1.bsky.social and @adrianbracken.bsky.social seeπŸ‘‡

6 months ago 5 3 0 0