Project description:In order to indentify the transcriptional differences between GFI1 KD and GFI1 KO mice that may account for differences in occurence of AML between these mice, we performed exresiion profiling by RNA-Seq on healthy young and old mice mice from both genotypes. In the case of GFI1 KD, the older mice had developped AML whereas KO mice of comparable ages did not.
Project description:GFI1 is a transcription factor and was implicated in the development of MDS. Reduced expression of GFI1 or presence of the GFI1-36N variant leads to epigenetic changes. Using GFI1-36S, -36N -KD, NUP98-HOXD13-tg mice and curcumin (a natural histone acetyltransferase inhibitor (HATi)), we now demonstrate that expansion of GFI1-36N or –KD, NUP98-HODXD13 leukemic cells can be delayed. Curcumin treatment significantly reduced AML progression in GFI1-36N or -KD mice and prolonged AML-free survival. Of note, curcumin treatment had no effect in GFI1-36S, NUP98-HODXD13 expressing mice. On a molecular level, curcumin treatment negatively affected open chromatin structure in the GFI1-36N or -KD haematopoietic cells but not GFI1-36S cells. Taken together, our study thus identified a therapeutic role for curcumin treatment in the treatment of AML patients (homo or heterozygous for GFI1-36N or reduced GFI1 expression) and possibly improved therapy outcome.
Project description:GFI1 is a transcriptional repressor that plays an essential role in HSCs development, lymphoid and myeloid differentiation and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) pathogenesis. Low expression of Gfi1 leads to poor prognosis in AML patients and is associated with less overall survival in murine AML models. In the current study, we show that mice with a low level or loss of GFI1 expression resulted in significantly fewer HSCs compared to normal GFI1 expression. We also show that, in a competitive transplantation setup involving cells expressing low and normal GFI1 levels, HSCs with a low level of GFI1 expression reconstituted the bone marrow (BM) including the HSCs, progenitors and differentiated cells. In contrast, HSCs with the complete loss of GFI1 failed to regenerate BM in competition with cells expressing normal GFI1 levels. To further investigate the molecular changes, we performed RNAseq analysis in HSCs derived from wildtype (GFI1-KI), low-level (GFI1-KD), loss (Gfi1-KO) and Gfi1 mutant (GFI1-36N) mice. In the pathway analysis, we observed a significant upregulation of cell-cycle-related pathways in HSCs derived from mice expressing low-level and mutant variant (36N) of GFI1., Strikingly, these pathways are significantly downregulated in the HSCs of GFI1-KO mice.
Project description:MDS is characterized by a disturbed function of the myeloid lineage of the hematopoietic system that may transform to AML, a malignant disease of the myeloid compartment. Epigenetic and genetic aberrations contribute to the initiation and progression of MDS/AML. GFI1 is a transcriptional repressor, which regulates expression of its target genes by, among other approaches, recruiting HDACs to its target genes to remove histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9) acetylation, a marker for active gene expression. Low levels of GFI1 expression and deletion of one GFI1 allele contribute to MDS/AML development in human patients and are associated with a specific gene expression signature and inferior prognosis. To explore the mechanism behind this, we used a mouse strain, which expresses GFI1 only at 5-10% of the normal level (GFI1-Knock-down (KD)). Knock-down of GFI1 or loss of one murine Gfi1 allele reduced latency and increased incidence of AML in different murine models of human MDS/AML development. On the epigenetic level, KD of Gfi1 lead to increased amount of H3K9 acetylation, resulting in increased expression of genes involved in AML development. On a translational level both murine as well as human AML cells with low expression of GFI1 are resistant to standard epigenetic therapy. We show that treatment with histone acetyltransferase inhibitors might be a novel treatment approach for low Gfi1-expressing blast cells. GFI1 has a dose dependent role in myeloid malignancies and is a biomarker for therapeutic intervention. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression in bone marrow cells of Nup98HoxD13 leucemic mice and identified distinct classes of up-regulated genes during this process. Bone marrow cells of leukemic mice (from KI & KD Nup98HoxD13 mice) were collected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays. We sought to obtain homogeneous populations of leukemic cell population, so we took samples of mice which had the same age.
Project description:MDS is characterized by a disturbed function of the myeloid lineage of the hematopoietic system that may transform to AML, a malignant disease of the myeloid compartment. Epigenetic and genetic aberrations contribute to the initiation and progression of MDS/AML. GFI1 is a transcriptional repressor, which regulates expression of its target genes by, among other approaches, recruiting HDACs to its target genes to remove histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9) acetylation, a marker for active gene expression. Low levels of GFI1 expression and deletion of one GFI1 allele contribute to MDS/AML development in human patients and are associated with a specific gene expression signature and inferior prognosis. To explore the mechanism behind this, we used a mouse strain, which expresses GFI1 only at 5-10% of the normal level (GFI1-Knock-down (KD)). Knock-down of GFI1 or loss of one murine Gfi1 allele reduced latency and increased incidence of AML in different murine models of human MDS/AML development. On the epigenetic level, KD of Gfi1 lead to increased amount of H3K9 acetylation, resulting in increased expression of genes involved in AML development. On a translational level both murine as well as human AML cells with low expression of GFI1 are resistant to standard epigenetic therapy. We show that treatment with histone acetyltransferase inhibitors might be a novel treatment approach for low Gfi1-expressing blast cells. GFI1 has a dose dependent role in myeloid malignancies and is a biomarker for therapeutic intervention. We carried out ChIP-Seq Analysis of H3K9Ac and RNA-Seq in leukemic cells from mice expressing reduced levels of Gfi1 compared to controls expressing normal levels of the factor.
Project description:MDS is characterized by a disturbed function of the myeloid lineage of the hematopoietic system that may transform to AML, a malignant disease of the myeloid compartment. Epigenetic and genetic aberrations contribute to the initiation and progression of MDS/AML. GFI1 is a transcriptional repressor, which regulates expression of its target genes by, among other approaches, recruiting HDACs to its target genes to remove histone 3 lysine 9 (H3K9) acetylation, a marker for active gene expression. Low levels of GFI1 expression and deletion of one GFI1 allele contribute to MDS/AML development in human patients and are associated with a specific gene expression signature and inferior prognosis. To explore the mechanism behind this, we used a mouse strain, which expresses GFI1 only at 5-10% of the normal level (GFI1-Knock-down (KD)). Knock-down of GFI1 or loss of one murine Gfi1 allele reduced latency and increased incidence of AML in different murine models of human MDS/AML development. On the epigenetic level, KD of Gfi1 lead to increased amount of H3K9 acetylation, resulting in increased expression of genes involved in AML development. On a translational level both murine as well as human AML cells with low expression of GFI1 are resistant to standard epigenetic therapy. We show that treatment with histone acetyltransferase inhibitors might be a novel treatment approach for low Gfi1-expressing blast cells. GFI1 has a dose dependent role in myeloid malignancies and is a biomarker for therapeutic intervention. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression in bone marrow cells of Nup98HoxD13 leucemic mice and identified distinct classes of up-regulated genes during this process.
Project description:Transcriptional repressor Growth factor independence 1 (GFI1) is a key regulator of haematopoiesis. We previously established that the germline variant GFI1-36N promotes acute myeloid leukemia (AML) development, however the mechanism is not full elucidated. Here using multi-omics approach, we show GFI1-36N expression impedes DNA repair in leukemic cells. We demonstrate the presence of GFI1-36N is associated with increased frequency of chromosomal aberrations and mutational burden in murine and human AML cells. In particular, GFI1-36N modulates DNA repair pathways, O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) and homologous recombination repair (HR). Mechanistically, GFI1-36N exhibits impaired binding to Ndrg1 promoter element compared to GFI1-36S (wild type), causing decreased NDRG1 levels consequently leading to suppression of MGMT expression, imprinted at the transcriptome and proteome, thus leaving the AML cells vulnerable to DNA damaging agents. Targeting MGMT via temozolomide and HR via olaparib caused specifically extensive lethality in in vitro and ex vivo human and AML samples expressing GFI1-36N. Whereas the effects were insignificant on non-malignant GFI1-36S or GFI1-36N cells. Further, mice transplanted with GFI1-36N leukemic cells treated with combination of temozolomide and olaparib had a significantly longer AML-free survival than mice transplanted with GFI1-36S leukemic cells. In summary, we show that GFI1-36N disturbs DNA repair activity via NDRG1-MGMT axis and thus provides critical insights into novel therapeutic option for AML presented with GFI1-36N variant. Key Points Presence of GFI1-36N impedes Homologous DNA and MGMT DNA repair selectively in AML cells via the NDRG1-MGMT axis. Use of temozolomide and olaparib allows selectively targeting GFI1-36N leukemic cells. Introduction Gfi1 is a transcription factor which regulates the development of haematopoietic cells as well as neuronal and intestinal epithelial cells 1-5. We reported that a variant of GFI1, denominated GFI1-36N (characterized by an exchange of serine to asparagine at position 36), has a prevalence of 5-7% in a healthy control population but is found at an increased frequency of 10-15% among MDS and AML patients 6,7. The expression of germline variant GFI1-36N predisposes the carriers to develop de novo AML and MDS and correlates with a poor prognosis 6,7. Recently, we and other showed that malignant cells with GFI1-36N variant have increased H3K9-acetylation at target genes resulting in higher expression of genes required for cell survival and proliferation 8. GFI1 exerts its repressive role by recruiting histone-modifying enzymes (deacetylases HDAC1-3, demethylase LSD1, methyl transferase G9a) and regulates the accessibility of DNA to its target genes such as Hoxa9, Pbx1, Meis1, CSF1 and CSFR1 9-15. We also showed that GFI1 regulates apoptosis through its regulation of p53 in lymphoblastic leukemia 16 and we have demonstrated that GFI1 facilitates DNA repair 17. However, it is not known how these activities are affected in the GFI1-36N variant and whether the ability of GFI1 to regulate DNA repair pathways is maintained and how this might affect the development of myeloid malignancies. In this study, we leveraged multi-omics profiling to gain mechanistic insights into the molecular architecture that drives leukemia in the presence of GFI1-36N. We provide evidence that GFI1-36N interferes with DNA in leukemic myeloid cells, which leads to a higher frequency of genetic aberrations in MDS/AML cells. We also show that GFI1-36N myeloid leukemic cells are more sensitive to targeting MGMT and HR repair deficient cells, which opens a new selective therapeutic window to treat AML/MDS.
Project description:ATAC-seq profiling of Nfat5 KO and wild type macrophages derived from bone marrow (primary cells), treated or not with Lipopolysaccharide (LPS).
Project description:The ketogenic diet has been successful in promoting weight loss among patients that have struggled with weight gain. This is due to the cellular switch in metabolism that utilizes liver-derived ketone bodies for the primary energy source rather than glucose. Fatty acid transport protein 2 (FATP2) is highly expressed in liver, small intestine, and kidney where it functions in both the transport of exogenous long chain fatty acids (LCFA) and in the activation to CoA thioesters of very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA). We have completed a multi-omic study of FATP2-null (Fatp2-/-) mice maintained on a ketogenic diet (KD) or paired control diet (CD), with and without a 24-hour fast (KD-fasted and CD-fasted) to address the impact of deleting FATP2 under high-stress conditions. Control (wt/wt) and Fatp2-/- mice were maintained on their respective diets for 4-weeks. Afterwards, half the population was sacrificed while the remaining were fasted for 24-hours prior to sacrifice. We then performed paired-end RNA-sequencing on the whole liver tissue to investigate differential gene expression. The differentially expressed genes mapped to ontologies such as the metabolism of amino acids and derivatives, fatty acid metabolism, protein localization, and components of the immune system’s complement cascade, and were supported by the proteome and histological staining.