TERT expression is susceptible to BRAF and ETS-factor inhibition in BRAF(V600E)/TERT promoter double-mutated glioma

The BRAF gene and the TERT promoter are among the most frequently altered genomic loci in low-grade (LGG) and high-grade-glioma (HGG), respectively. The coexistence of BRAF and TERT promoter aberrations characterizes a subset of aggressive glioma. Therefore, we investigated interactions between those alterations in malignant glioma. We analyzed co-occurrence of BRAF(V600E) and TERT promoter mutations in our clinical data (n = 8) in addition to published datasets (n = 103) and established a BRAF(V600E)-positive glioma cell panel (n = 9) for in vitro analyses. We investigated altered gene expression, signaling events and TERT promoter activity upon BRAF- and E-twenty-six (ETS)-factor inhibition by qRT-PCR, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), Western blots and luciferase reporter assays. TERT promoter mutations were significantly enriched in BRAF(V600E)-mutated HGG as compared to BRAF(V600E)-mutated LGG. In vitro, BRAF(V600E)/TERT promoter double-mutant glioma cells showed exceptional sensitivity towards BRAF-targeting agents. Remarkably, BRAF-inhibition attenuated TERT expression and TERT promoter activity exclusively in double-mutant models, while TERT expression was undetectable in BRAF(V600E)-only cells. Various ETS-factors were broadly expressed, however, only ETS1 expression and phosphorylation were consistently downregulated following BRAF-inhibition. Knock-down experiments and ChIP corroborated the notion of a functional role for ETS1 and, accordingly, all double-mutant tumor cells were highly sensitive towards the ETS-factor inhibitor YK-4-279. In conclusion, our data suggest that concomitant BRAF(V600E) and TERT promoter mutations synergistically support cancer cell proliferation and immortalization. ETS1 links these two driver alterations functionally and may represent a promising therapeutic target in this aggressive glioma subgroup. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s40478-019-0775-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.