BCL6B-dependent suppression of ETV2 hampers endothelial cell differentiation

B-cell CLL/lymphoma 6 member B (BCL6B) operates as a sequence-specific transcriptional repressor within the nucleus, playing crucial roles in various biological functions, including tumor suppression, immune response, stem cell self-renew, and vascular angiogenesis. However, whether BCL6B is involved in endothelial cell (EC) development has remained largely unknown. ETS variant transcription factor 2 (ETV2) is well known to facilitate EC differentiation. This study aims to determine the important role of BCL6B in EC differentiation and its potential mechanisms.

Doxycycline-inducible human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) lines with BCL6B overexpression or BCL6B knockdown were established and subjected to differentiate into ECs and vessel organoids (VOs). RNA sequencing analysis was performed to identify potential signal pathways regulated by BCL6B during EC differentiation from hiPSCs. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of pluripotency and vascular-specific marker genes expression. EC differentiation efficiency was determined by Flow cytometry analysis. The performance of EC was evaluated by in vitro Tube formation assay. The protein expression and the vessel-like structures were assessed using immunofluorescence analysis or western blot. Luciferase reporter gene assay and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-PCR analysis were used to determine the regulatory relationship between BCL6B and ETV2.

Functional ECs and VOs were successfully generated from hiPSCs. Notably, overexpression of BCL6B suppressed while knockdown of BCL6B improved EC differentiation from hiPSCs. Additionally, the overexpression of BCL6B attenuated the capacity of derived hiPSC-ECs to form a tubular structure. Furthermore, compared to the control VOs, BCL6B overexpression repressed the growth of VOs, whereas BCL6B knockdown had little effect on the size of VOs. RNA sequencing analysis confirmed that our differentiation protocol induced landscape changes for cell/tissue/system developmental process, particularly vascular development and tube morphogenesis, which were significantly modulated by BCL6B. Subsequent experiments confirmed the inhibitory effect of BCL6B is facilitated by the binding of BCL6B to the promoter region of ETV2, led to the suppression of ETV2's transcriptional activity. Importantly, the inhibitory effect of BCL6B overexpression on EC differentiation from hiPSCs could be rescued by ETV2 overexpression.

BCL6B inhibits EC differentiation and hinders VO development by repressing the transcriptional activity of ETV2.