NPM-ALK oncogenic tyrosine kinase controls T-cell identity by transcriptional regulation and epigenetic silencing in lymphoma cells.

ABSTRACT: Transformed cells in lymphomas usually maintain the phenotype of the postulated normal lymphocyte from which they arise. By contrast, anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) is a T-cell lymphoma with aberrant phenotype because of the defective expression of the T-cell receptor and other T-cell-specific molecules for still undetermined mechanisms. The majority of ALCL carries the translocation t(2;5) that encodes for the oncogenic tyrosine kinase NPM-ALK, fundamental for survival, proliferation, and migration of transformed T cells. Here, we show that loss of T-cell-specific molecules in ALCL cases is broader than reported previously and involves most T-cell receptor-related signaling molecules, including CD3epsilon, ZAP70, LAT, and SLP76. We further show that NPM-ALK, but not the kinase-dead NPM-ALK(K210R), downregulated the expression of these molecules by a STAT3-mediated gene transcription regulation and/or epigenetic silencing because this downregulation was reverted by treating ALCL cells with 5-aza-2-deoxycytidine or by knocking down STAT3 through short hairpin RNA. Finally, NPM-ALK increased the methylation of ZAP70 intron 1-exon 2 boundary region, and both NPM-ALK and STAT3 regulated the expression levels of DNA methyltransferase 1 in transformed T cells. Thus, our data reveal that oncogene-deregulated tyrosine kinase activity controls the expression of molecules that determine T-cell identity and signaling.

SUBMITTER: Ambrogio C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2784121 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature