Project description:Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease from the molecular and biological standpoints, and even patients with a specific gene expression profile may present clinical and molecular heterogeneity. We studied the epigenetic profiles of a cohort of patients that shared a common gene expression profile but differed in that only half of them harbored mutations of the CEBPA locus, while the rest presented with silencing of this gene and co-expression of certain T cell markers. DNA methylation studies revealed that these two groups of patients could be readily segregated in an unsupervised fashion based on their DNA methylation profiles alone. Furthermore, CEBPA silencing was associated with the presence of an aberrant DNA hypermethylation signature, which was not present in the CEBPA mutant group. This aberrant hypermethylation occurred more frequently at sites within CpG islands. CEBPA silenced leukemias also displayed marked hypermethylation when compared with normal CD34+ hematopoietic cells, while CEBPA mutant cases showed only mild changes in DNA methylation when compared to these normal progenitors. Biologically, CEBPA silenced leukemias presented with a decreased response to myeloid growth factors in vitro. Keywords: DNA methylation profiling Direct comparison of DNA methylation in leukemic blasts from 8 patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) carrying a CEBPA mutation and 8 patients with AML without CEBPA mutation but with silencing of CEBPA expression. Two control groups are included: 8 CD34+ bone marrow samples from healthy donors and 9 samples of T Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) patients.
Project description:Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease from the molecular and biological standpoints, and even patients with a specific gene expression profile may present clinical and molecular heterogeneity. We studied the epigenetic profiles of a cohort of patients that shared a common gene expression profile but differed in that only half of them harbored mutations of the CEBPA locus, while the rest presented with silencing of this gene and co-expression of certain T cell markers. DNA methylation studies revealed that these two groups of patients could be readily segregated in an unsupervised fashion based on their DNA methylation profiles alone. Furthermore, CEBPA silencing was associated with the presence of an aberrant DNA hypermethylation signature, which was not present in the CEBPA mutant group. This aberrant hypermethylation occurred more frequently at sites within CpG islands. CEBPA silenced leukemias also displayed marked hypermethylation when compared with normal CD34+ hematopoietic cells, while CEBPA mutant cases showed only mild changes in DNA methylation when compared to these normal progenitors. Biologically, CEBPA silenced leukemias presented with a decreased response to myeloid growth factors in vitro. Experiment Overall Design: Direct comparison of gene expression in leukemic blasts from 8 patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) carrying a CEBPA mutation and 8 patients with AML without CEBPA mutation but with silencing of CEBPA expression, and with 9 samples of T Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) patients.
Project description:Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease from the molecular and biological standpoints, and even patients with a specific gene expression profile may present clinical and molecular heterogeneity. We studied the epigenetic profiles of a cohort of patients that shared a common gene expression profile but differed in that only half of them harbored mutations of the CEBPA locus, while the rest presented with silencing of this gene and co-expression of certain T cell markers. DNA methylation studies revealed that these two groups of patients could be readily segregated in an unsupervised fashion based on their DNA methylation profiles alone. Furthermore, CEBPA silencing was associated with the presence of an aberrant DNA hypermethylation signature, which was not present in the CEBPA mutant group. This aberrant hypermethylation occurred more frequently at sites within CpG islands. CEBPA silenced leukemias also displayed marked hypermethylation when compared with normal CD34+ hematopoietic cells, while CEBPA mutant cases showed only mild changes in DNA methylation when compared to these normal progenitors. Biologically, CEBPA silenced leukemias presented with a decreased response to myeloid growth factors in vitro. Keywords: DNA methylation profiling
Project description:Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is a heterogeneous disease from the molecular and biological standpoints, and even patients with a specific gene expression profile may present clinical and molecular heterogeneity. We studied the epigenetic profiles of a cohort of patients that shared a common gene expression profile but differed in that only half of them harbored mutations of the CEBPA locus, while the rest presented with silencing of this gene and co-expression of certain T cell markers. DNA methylation studies revealed that these two groups of patients could be readily segregated in an unsupervised fashion based on their DNA methylation profiles alone. Furthermore, CEBPA silencing was associated with the presence of an aberrant DNA hypermethylation signature, which was not present in the CEBPA mutant group. This aberrant hypermethylation occurred more frequently at sites within CpG islands. CEBPA silenced leukemias also displayed marked hypermethylation when compared with normal CD34+ hematopoietic cells, while CEBPA mutant cases showed only mild changes in DNA methylation when compared to these normal progenitors. Biologically, CEBPA silenced leukemias presented with a decreased response to myeloid growth factors in vitro. Keywords: Gene expression profiling using arrays
Project description:Cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) comprise between forty and fifty percent of all adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cases. In this clinically diverse group molecular aberrations such as FLT3ITD, NPM1 and CEBPA mutations recently have added to the prognostic accuracy. Aberrant DNA methylation is a hallmark of cancer including AML. We investigated in total 89 CN-AML samples in a test and a validation cohort for genome-wide promoter DNA methylation with Illumina Methylation Bead arrays and compared them to normal myeloid precursors and global gene expression. IDH and NPM1 mutations were associated with different methylation patterns (p=0.0004 and 0.04, respectively). Genome-wide methylation levels were elevated in IDH mutated samples (p=0.006). We observed a negative impact of DNA methylation on transcription. Genes targeted by Polycomb group (PcG) proteins and genes associated with bivalent histone marks in stem cells showed increased aberrant methylation in AML (p<0.0001). Furthermore, high methylation levels of PcG target genes were independently associated with better progression free (OR 0.47, p=0.01) and overall survival (OR 0.36, p=0.001). In summary, genome wide methylation patterns show preferential methylation of PcG targets with prognostic impact in CN-AML. Genome wide methylation pattern study of cytogenetically normal AML
Project description:Aberrant DNA methylation of gene promoters is a hallmark of AML. To define more precisely how cytosine methylation is redistributed in AML, we performed base-pair resolution methylome sequencing in 119 patients. We find that leukemic DNA methylation patterning is tightly linked to somatic mutations and primarily driven by regulatory elements outside of promoters and by CpG shores as opposed to CpG islands. Active enhancers displayed much stronger focal differential methylation than promoters and were generally aberrantly hypomethylated except in IDH2 mutant and CEBPA silenced AMLs. AMLs with dominant hypermethylation feature greater epigenetic disruption of promoters. Those with dominant hypomethylation, such as DNMT3A mutated AMLs, display greater disruption of distal and intronic regions. IDH mutant AMLs manifest profound hypermethylation whereas DNMT3A mutant AMLs manifest profound hypomethylation of a different set of CpGs. In striking contrast, AMLs with co-occurring IDH1 and DNMT3A mutations exhibited epigenetic antagonism in which most CpGs affected by either mutation alone were no longer affected in the double mutant cases.
Project description:Studies of AML patient samples have shown that specific combinations of AML disease alleles confer an adverse outcome, however, in vivo models do not exist for the majority of common, poor-prognosis genotypes. Here we show that TET2/FLT3 mutations can cooperate to induce AML in vivo using a genetically engineered mouse model, and that this model has a defined stem-cell population with a characteristic transcriptional and epigenetic profile. TET2 and FLT3 mutations cooperate to induce site-specific changes in DNA methylation and gene expression, including at loci that regulate hematopoietic differentiation. We demonstrate that re-expression of genes that are silenced in TET2/FLT3-mutant AML restores normal differentiation, demonstrating that the epigenetic program of TET2/FLT3-mutant AML cells can be reversed in vitro and in vivo. Using ERRBS, we profiled genome-wide DNA methylation patterns of the hematopoietic stem cells (LSK) population in Wide-type, Flt3-IDT, Tet2-/-, and Tet2-/-Flt3-IDT mice, each in triplicates