Fig. 3. K362 methylation enhances ERG transcriptional and oncogenic activity.
a Luciferase activity of the ETS responsive reporter in LNCaP cells expressing WT, K362A, K362A/E412A ERG, or empty vector (EV). Bottom, protein expression verified by immunoblotting. b Luciferase activity of the ETS responsive reporter in RWPE1 cells expressing WT, K362A, E412A, K362A/E412A ERG, or empty vector (EV). Bottom, protein expression verified by immunoblotting. c Total modulated genes in LNCaP cells expressing WT or K362A ERG. d Heat map showing the intensity of the transcripts significantly modulated in LNCaP cells expressing WT, K362A ERG, or empty vector (EV). Scale bar shows LogRatio range. Red, upregulation; green, downregulation (n = 2/group). e Scatter plot of the LogRatios of genes deregulated in LNCaP-ERG vs control (logFC ERG WILD) and LNCaP-ERG-K362A vs control (logFC ERG MUT). Regression line was calculated by means of the lm function (regression line coefficient = 0.44). f Venn diagram showing the convergence of genes modulated by WT-ERG and ERG-K362A. g Convergence between genes modulated by WT-ERG or ERG-K362A and ERG genomic occupancy in VCaP cells. h Soft agar, clonogenic, and sphere forming assays in LNCaP cells expressing WT, K362A ERG or an empty vector (EV). i Growth of xenografts of LNCaP cells expressing WT-ERG, ERG-K362A, or an empty vector (EV) injected in NSG mice (n = 3/group). Right, histological and Ki67 immunostaining scores in tumor xenografts. Scale bars represent 200 µm. j Growth of xenografts of RWPE1 cells expressing WT, ERG-K362A, K362A/E412A (DM) ERG, or an empty vector (EV) injected in NSG mice (n = 4, biological independent samples). Right, histological and Ki67 immunostaining scores in tumor xenografts. Scale bars represent 200 µm. All error bars, mean ± s.d. P-values were determined by one-way ANOVA test. Source data are provided as a Source Data File.