Project description:[original title] Gene expression analysis of leukemic samples derived from AF4-MLL- or AF4-MLL/MLL-AF4-transduced and transplanted hematopoietic stem/precursor cells in C57BL6 mice. We used microarrays to analyze the global gene expression in leukemic cells with three distinct immunophenotypes. We compared leukemic cells isolated from the bone marrow of diseased mice and compared these profiles with normal bone marrow.
Project description:In our study, we found that MLL-AF4 transcriptionally induces IGF2BP3 and is required for MLL-Af4 mediated leukemogenesis. Deletion of murine Igf2bp3 significantly increased the survival of mice with MLL-Af4 driven leukemia and greatly attenuated disease. Furthermore, Igf2bp3 was necessary for the development of and the self-renewal capacity of MLL-Af4 leukemic initiating cells. eCLIP and transcriptome analysis of MLL-Af4 transformed stem and progenitor cells and primary cells from MLL-Af4 leukemic mice revealed an IGF2BP3-regulated post-transcriptional operon governing tumor cell survival and proliferation. Critical mRNA targets include the Hoxa locus and numerous genes within the Ras signaling pathway. Together, our findings show that IGF2BP3 is an essential positive regulator of MLL-AF4 mediated leukemogenesis and is a potential therapeutic target in this disease.
Project description:We created a mouse model where conditional expression of physiologic levels of an Mll-AF4 fusion oncogene induces development of acute lymphoblastic (ALL) or acute myeloid leukemias (AML). Immunophenotypic and gene expression analysis of the ALL cells demonstrated bone marrow replacement with B-precursor cells which express a gene expression profile that has significant overlap with profiles in human MLL-rearranged ALL. To examine early, pre-leukemic changes in lymphoid cells due to Mll-AF4 expression, we infected 5-FU bone marrow cells from Mll-AF4stop knocking mice with activating (Cre-GFP) or control (MIF-GFP) retrovirus ex vivo and measured expression changes after culture under lymphoid growth conditions. Experiment Overall Design: Mll-AF4stop knock-in mice were treated with 5-FU and 5 days later their bone marrow infected ex vivo with either Cre-GFP to activate the Mll-AF4 fusion construct or with a control MIG-Cre retrovirus. GFP+ cells were sorted 2 days post-infection and cultured for 14 days under lymphoid growth conditions before total RNA was isolated for hybridization to Affymetrix expression microarrays.
Project description:Purpose: We designed this study to evaluate the feasibility of using only one factor to respecify human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)-derived blood cells into long-term engraftable hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). We also parallelly compared iPSC-derived HSPCs (iHSPCs) with primary HSPCs under the same induction and transplantation condition in order to examine the functional equivalency between iHSPCs and bona fide HSPCs. Methods: In vitro derived human iPSC-HSPCs are induced with or without (w/o) doxycycline for the expression of MLL-AF4. In vivo derived bone marrow cells are harvested and FACS-sorted for human populations from primary transplants over nine to sixteen weeks after transplantation. Either iPSC-HSPCs or primary HSPCs, both of which are induced by MLL-AF4, is used for the transplantation experiments. iPSCs are either derived from peripheral blood mobilized CD34+ HSPCs (CD34-iPSC) or mononuclear cells (MN-iPSCs). Normal human CD34+ HSPCs and mononuclear cells are set as control groups. Results: MLL-AF4 can impart HSC and lymphoid potential to iPSC-derived blood cells in vitro, and induction of MLL-AF4 leads to the cellular identity transition from common myeloid progenitors to hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. MLL-AF4 alone is sufficient to realize the potent engraftment of induced HSPCs (iHSPCs) from iPSCs, and multilineage and long-term hematopoiesis could be observed. Primary HSPCs with the induction of MLL-AF4 could gain significantly enhanced engraftability. During the long-term engraftment period, leukemic mutations with a bias to B-cell leukemia could be found in the iHSPCs and their derivatives. By contrast, MLL-AF4 induced primary HSPCs maintain the normal hematopoiesis without leukemic transformation. Conclusions: Our study has demonstrated for the first time, to our knowledge, that the pluripotency-dependent conversion of somatic cells to long-term engraftable HSPCs can be achieved by using a single factor in a non-integrative way. This study also suggests that iPSC-derived HSPCs are more prone to leukemic mutations during the long-term engraftment period, which provides a necessary caveat of using them in the actual therapies.
Project description:[original title] Gene expression analysis of leukemic samples derived from AF4-MLL- or AF4-MLL/MLL-AF4-transduced and transplanted hematopoietic stem/precursor cells in C57BL6 mice. We used microarrays to analyze the global gene expression in leukemic cells with three distinct immunophenotypes.
Project description:The t(4;11)(q21;q23) fuses MLL to AF4, the most common MLL fusion partner. Here we show that MLL fused to murine Af4, highly conserved with human AF4, produces high-titer retrovirus permitting efficient transduction of human CD34+ cells to generate a faithful model of t(4;11) proB ALL that fully recapitulates the immunophenotypic and molecular aspects of the disease. MLL-Af4 induces a distinct B-ALL from MLL-AF9 through differential DNA binding of the fusion proteins leading to specific gene expression patterns. MLL-Af4 cells can assume a myeloid state under environmental pressure but retain lymphoid-lineage potential. We observed this incongruity in t(4;11) patients who evaded CD19-directed therapy by undergoing myeloid-lineage switch. Our model provides a valuable tool to unravel the pathogenesis of MLL-AF4 leukemogenesis.
Project description:We created a mouse model where conditional expression of physiologic levels of an Mll-AF4 fusion oncogene induces development of acute lymphoblastic (ALL) or acute myeloid leukemias (AML). Immunophenotypic and gene expression analysis of the ALL cells demonstrated bone marrow replacement with B-precursor cells which express a gene expression profile that has significant overlap with profiles in human MLL-rearranged ALL. To examine early, pre-leukemic changes in lymphoid cells due to Mll-AF4 expression, we infected 5-FU bone marrow cells from Mll-AF4stop knocking mice with activating (Cre-GFP) or control (MIF-GFP) retrovirus ex vivo and measured expression changes after culture under lymphoid growth conditions. Keywords: Cell type comparison
Project description:Infants diagnosed of precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (iB-ALL) presenting MLL-AF4 chromosomal rearrangement are at high risk of disease progression into fatal outcome. This specific subtype of pediatric leukemia constitutes a tough challenge in leukemia research, given the difficulties found when trying in vivo modelling. However, the understanding of mechanisms leading to proper lymphocyte generation may become of high utility in gaining deep insight on this malignancy. As we report here, the lack of HDAC7, a key transcriptional regulator in B lymphocyte differentiation, worsens the prognosis of iB-ALL patients. In fact, MLL-AF4+ iB-ALL patients with high expression of HDAC7 display an improved survival, partially mediated by the repression of oncogenes, such as c-MYC, and chemoresistance markers, like the ASNS enzyme. Accordingly, HDAC7 drastically reduces leukemic cells proliferation in MLL-AF4+ iB-ALL through the induction of apoptosis. Moreover, RNA sequencing of HDAC7-overexpressing cells has revealed that HDAC7 alters the genomic profiling of MLL-AF4+ iB-ALL cells towards that of healthy B-cell progenitors. In summary, the findings here reported highlight the role of HDAC7 in predicting prognosis of a lethal subtype of iB-ALL and open new clinical perspectives, since MLL-AF4+ iB-ALL infants would highly benefit from therapeutic options eventually restoring HDAC7 expression.
Project description:The MLL-AF4 fusion gene is a hallmark genomic aberration in high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia in infants. Although it is well-established that MLL-AF4 arises pre-natally during human development, its effects on hematopoietic development in utero remains unexplored. We have created a human-specific in vitro system to study early hemato-endothelial development in MLL-AF4-expressing human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). Differentiation and functional studies as well as clonal analyses and gene expression profiling reveal that expression of MLL-AF4 in hESCs has a phenotypic, functional and gene expression impact. It enhances the specification of hemogenic precursors from hESCs and impairs further hematopoietic commitment of these precursors in favour of the endothelial cell fate. Similar to that reported in cord blood CD34+ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs), MLL-AF4 expression is not sufficient to transform hESC-derived hematopoietic cells in vitro or in vivo, indicating that additional events may be required to initiate leukemogenesis or that embryonic hematopoiesis is not the appropriate human cellular target for MLL-AF4-mediated leukemogenesis. This work illustrates how hESCs can provide unique insights into human development and further our understanding of how leukemic fusion genes known to arise pre-natally regulate human embryonic hematopoietic specification. MLL is involved in transcriptional regulation and most MLL translocations appear to result in increased expression of Hox genes and hematopoietic genes. We therefore assessed the impact of MLL-AF4 expression on the transcriptome of hESCs. Gene expression profiling performed in MLL-AF4 hESCs revealed that MLL-AF4 preferentially activates transcription. 1826 out of the 3001 genes (61%) expressed were up-regulated in MLL-AF4 hESCs. Human ESC samples were collected during the exponential cell growth phase and stabilized in RNA later. 500 ng of each total RNA sample was labelled with Cy3 using the Quick-Amp Labelling kit and hybridized with the Gene Expression Hybridization kit to a Whole Human Genome Oligo Microarray (Agilent Technologies) following the Manufacturer’s instructions. Each cell line was analyzed as independent duplicates. NEO-expressing (empty lentivector) hESC line was used as the baseline.
Project description:Chromatin accessibility was assessed by ATAC-Seq in lymphoid-primed multipotent progenitors (LMPPs) from human foetal livers (FLs) and mouse wild-type FLs as well as FLs from mouse embryos that express the oncofusion Mll-AF4 in the definitive blood system. The aim of this study was to establish whether overall chromatin accessibility at key haematopoietic sites and loci that have been linked to leukaemia are differentially accessible in human vs mouse LMPPs and whether this is altered by the expression of the Mll-AF4 oncofusion.