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Despite remarkable advances in our understanding of a genetic basis of cancer, the precise molecular definition of the phenotypically relevant genetic features associated with human epithelial malignancies remains a significant and highly relevant challenge. Here we performed a systematic analysis of the chromosomal positions of cancer-associated transcripts for prostate, breast, ovarian, and colon tumors, and identified short segments of human chromosomes that appear to represent a common target for transcriptional activation in major epithelial malignancies in human. These cancer-associated transcriptomeres correspond well to the regions of transient transcriptional activity on chromosomes 1q21-q23 (144-160 Mbp), 12q13 (52-63 Mbp), 17q21 (38-50 Mbp), 17q23-q25 (72-82 Mbp), 19p13 (1-16 Mbp), and Xq28 (132-142 Mbp) during human cell cycle, suggesting a common epigenetic mechanism of transcriptional activation. Consistent with this idea, two of these transcriptomeres (12q13 and 17q21) seemed to be related to the p53regulated transcriptional clusters, and some of the cancer-associated transcriptomeres appeared to correspond well to the recently identified regions of increased gene expression on human chromosomes.

Inflammatory responses represent a hallmark of numerous pathologies including sepsis, bacterial infection, insulin resistance, and malign obesity. Here we describe an unexpected coactivator function for the nuclear receptor interacting protein 140 (RIP140) for nuclear factor kappaB (NFkappaB), a master transcriptional regulator of inflammation in multiple tissues. Previous work has shown that RIP140 suppresses the expression of metabolic gene networks, but we have found that genetic as well as acute deficiency of RIP140 leads to the inhibition of the proinflammatory program in macrophages. The ability of RIP140 to function as a coactivator for cytokine gene promoter activity relies on direct protein-protein interactions with the NFkappaB subunit RelA and histone acetylase cAMP-responsive element binding protein (CREB)-binding protein (CBP). RIP140-dependent control of proinflammatory gene expression via RelA/CBP may, therefore, represent a molecular rational for the cellular integration of metabolic and inflammatory pathways.