Abstract
High expression of the HOXA cluster correlates with poor clinical outcome in acute myeloid leukemias, particularly those harboring rearrangements of the mixed-lineage-leukemia gene (MLLr). Whilst decreased HOXA expression acts as a readout for candidate experimental therapies, the necessity of the HOXA cluster for leukemia maintenance has not been fully explored.
Primary leukemias were generated in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells from Cre responsive transgenic mice for conditional deletion of the Hoxa locus. Hoxa deletion resulted in reduced proliferation and colony formation in which surviving leukemic cells retained at least one copy of the Hoxa cluster, indicating dependency. Comparative transcriptome analysis of Hoxa wild type and
deleted leukemic cells identified a unique gene signature associated with key pathways including transcriptional mis-regulation in cancer, the Fanconi anemia pathway and cell cycle progression.
Further bioinformatics analysis of the gene signature identified a number of candidate FDA-approved drugs for potential repurposing in high HOXA expressing cancers including MLLr leukemias.
Together these findings support dependency for an MLLr leukemia on Hoxa expression and identified candidate drugs for further therapeutic evaluation.
Primary leukemias were generated in hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells from Cre responsive transgenic mice for conditional deletion of the Hoxa locus. Hoxa deletion resulted in reduced proliferation and colony formation in which surviving leukemic cells retained at least one copy of the Hoxa cluster, indicating dependency. Comparative transcriptome analysis of Hoxa wild type and
deleted leukemic cells identified a unique gene signature associated with key pathways including transcriptional mis-regulation in cancer, the Fanconi anemia pathway and cell cycle progression.
Further bioinformatics analysis of the gene signature identified a number of candidate FDA-approved drugs for potential repurposing in high HOXA expressing cancers including MLLr leukemias.
Together these findings support dependency for an MLLr leukemia on Hoxa expression and identified candidate drugs for further therapeutic evaluation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2036 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Cancers |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 12 |
| Early online date | 17 Dec 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Early online date - 17 Dec 2019 |
Access to Document
- Pathways, Processes, and Candidate Drugs Associated with a Hoxa Cluster-Dependency Model of Leukemia
Copyright 2019 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.