Expression of PCAF, p300 and Gcn5 and more highly acetylated histone H4 in pediatric tumors

Any deregulation of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) could affect several processes in tumors. In this paper, the expression of the PCAF, p300 and Gcn5 HATs by RT-PCR in 34 tumor samples was evaluated. Samples of both central nervous system tumors (CNST, 13 cases) and Wilm's tumors (WT, 11 cases) over-expressed PCAF up to 1.6-, and Gcn5 up to 1.3-fold, respectively. In 9 out of 10 samples of benign tumors (BT), PCAF was not expressed. The p300 gene was the least expressed in all tumors. The medians of expression of PCAF (124.0 DU) and Gcn5 (127.0 DU) genes were higher in CNST than in both WT (102.0 and 101.0 DU, respectively) and BT (70.0 and 82.4 DU, respectively). There was a trend to decrease the expression of PCAF and Gcn5 genes in CNST, according to: chemotherapy (110.0 and 96.0 DU, respectively), chemo plus radiotherapy (124.0 and 115.0 DU, respectively) or no treatment (134.0 and 142.0 DU, respectively) in the tumors. A similar trend was observed in WT. Finally, we revealed more highly acetylated forms of histone H4 in CNST and WT. The over-expression of PCAF could represent a new molecular tumor marker in malignant tumors, especially in CNST in pediatric patients.