KLF6: Mutational analysis and effect on cancer cell proliferation

Kruppel-like factor 6 (KLF6/Zf9/CPBP), a member of the Kruppel-like family of zinc finger transcription factors, has recently been suggested to be a mutated tumor suppressor in selected human cancers. Initially, we investigated whether the KLF6 gene was altered in 36 paired non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC), 89 brain tumors, 7 normal brains, 46 cancer cell lines from a large variety of tissues, and 144 peripheral blood cells from healthy individuals using single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) and DNA sequencing. Changes in the coding region of KLF6 were found in brain tumors (missense changes, 8%; silent polymorphisms, 2%), lung cancers (missense changes, 3%; silent polymorphisms, 6%) and cancer cell lines (missense changes, 2%; silent polymorphisms, 2%). All of the nucleotide changes in the lung tumor samples were present in their matched normal samples, suggesting that these changes were germline polymorphism. Many of the altered KLF6 genes found in the brain tumors were cloned into an expression vector and placed into a GBM cell line, and cell growth was monitored. Wild-type, deleted exon 3, or E30G missense KLF6 significantly reduced cell growth; in contrast, forced expression of KLF6 having either the S92R, P183L or A276G missense substitution did not alter the growth of transfected GBM cells (p>0.05). Expression levels of KLF6 were higher in normal brain samples than in glioma samples as measured by real-time RT-PCR (p<0.05). To our surprise, nucleotide changes were found at -4, -5, and -6 upstream of the start of translation in 45% of brain tumors, and 10% of normal blood samples. Focusing on the most frequent alteration (-4 C>A), the nucleotide change did not affect translation of KLF6. Taking together, KLF6 coding sequences are altered in 10% brain tumors, 8% NSLC, and 4% of cancer cell lines. All of those observed in lung cancer are germline polymorphisms. Several additional ones identified in GBM, have lost their ability to slow the growth of glioma cells; furthermore, a proportion of GBM have decreased expression of KLF6 as compared to normal brain tissue. Dysfunction of this gene may contribute to oncogenesis in the brain.