Project description:TET1/2/3 are methylcytosine dioxygenases regulating cytosine hydroxymethylation in the genome. Tet1 and Tet2 are abundantly expressed in HSC/HPCs and implicated in the pathogenesis of hematological malignancies. Tet2-deletion in mice causes myeloid malignancies, while Tet1-null mice develop B-cell lymphoma after an extended period of latency. Interestingly, TET1 and TET2 were often concomitantly down-regulated in acute B-lymphocytic leukemia. Here, we investigated the overlapping and non-redundant functions of Tet1/Tet2 in HSC maintenance and development of hematological malignancies using Tet1/2 double knockout (DKO) mice. DKO and Tet2-/- HSC/HPCs had overlapping and unique 5hmC and 5mC profiles and behaved differently. DKO mice exhibited strikingly decreased incidence and delayed onset of myeloid malignancies compared to Tet2-/- mice and in contrast developed lethal B-cell malignancies. Transcriptome analysis of DKO tumors revealed expression changes in many genes dysregulated in human B-cell malignancies, such as LMO2, BCL6 and MYC. These results highlight the critical roles of TET1 or TET2 individually and their cross-talks in the pathogenesis of hematological malignancies. Given the role of Tet proteins in 5mC oxidation, we employed a previously established chemical labeling and affinity purification method coupled with high-throughput sequencing (hMe-Seal) to profile the genome-wide distribution of 5hmC, as well as methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) coupled with high-throughput sequencing (MeDIP-seq) to profile 5mC using BM LK cells purified from young WT, Tet2-/- and DKO mice (6-10 wks old).
Project description:TERT promoter variants are well known in solid tumors. However, less is known in hematological malignancies, thus we screened a large series of MDS and MDS/MPN.