ALBERT

Description: Introduction: Meningioma 1 (MN1) gene was described as a prognostic marker for AML patients with normal karyotype (Carturan et al. Oncotarget 2016). In addition, MN1 high expression was linked to RA resistance and was shown to be necessary and sufficient to transform common myeloid progenitors in a MEIS1/AbdB-like HOX protein complex-dependent manner. However, the relevance of the copresence of MN1 overexpression in AML patients with mutations of the FLT3 and/or NPM1 genes is unknown. Moreover, it is also unknown the functional effects of MN1 in the biology of leukemic blasts harboring FLT3 mutations and if it may modulate the response to FLT3 inhibitors, such as quizartinib (AC220) and midostaurin (PKC). Aims: Herein, we investigated the prognostic impact of MN1 expression across multiple transcriptomic platforms and AML data sets. Additionally, we transduced different AML cell lines to evaluate the impact of MN1 on cell survival and differentiation. Methods: Three different AML series (1th: GSE6891, 240 patients, 2nd: TCGA, 113 patients and 3rd: BeatAML, 139 patients) were used. All patients presented similar gender distribution, were above 18y and treated by the 3+7 scheme. All genes from the RNAseq (TCGA) were pre-ranked according to their differential expression comparing tumors with high and low expression of MN1, using their median expression rate as the cutoff. GSEA was performed using the Reactome, KEGG and Hallmarks databases. Additionally, we transduced 07 AML cell lines with the MN1 gene and the control. For those cells, clonogenicity and proliferation rate was evaluated to identify which cell lines are sensitive and resistant to MN1. Drug induced apoptotic rate was assessed for FLT3-ITD- cell lines when treated with AraC (10 nM) and FLT3-ITD+ cell lines (MOLM13/MV411) upon treatment with PKC and AC220 over a time period of 24, 48 and 72 h. Apoptosis was further confirmed by cleaved Caspase-3/PARP detection. The myeloid differentiation in response to PMA treatment (100 ng/ml) was determined by the surface levels of CD11b, CD11c, CD14, CD15, CD61 and HLADR. Results: In all three AML series, high MN1 levels higher than the median (hereafter called High MN1) were associated with lower frequency of FLT3 and NPM1 mutations (P

Description: Background: TP73 isoforms gained particular relevance in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) since Bernasola et al (JEM. 2004) demonstrated that TAp73 was directly regulated by the PML protein in the nuclear body. The isoforms differ in their transcriptional activity, with those lacking domains in the N-terminal part of the protein exerting a dominant negative effect on TP73 function. In a retrospective analysis of patients with APL treated in ICAPL study, Lucena-Araujo et al (Blood 2015) demonstrated the association between higher ΔNp73/TAp73 ratio values and poor clinical outcome. However,there is a diversity of TP73 isoforms and specially those lacking N-terminal domains (e.g.ΔEx2p73, ΔEx2-3p73 and ΔN'p73) may be relevant in APL genesis and therapy response. Aims: Here, we quantified transcript levels of TP73 N-terminal variants TAp73, ΔNp73, ΔEx2p73, ΔEx2-3p73 and ΔN'p73, as well as the C-terminal variants TP73αand TP73β, and determined whether there is a prognostic correlation. In addition, we evaluated the effect of ΔNp73overexpression on APL cell lines survival and differentiation in vitro and in vivo. Methods: Bone marrow (BM) samples from 98 patients (age, 18-74y) with newly diagnosed APL enrolled in the International Consortium on Acute Leukemia (ICAPL2006) were included. For comparison, BM mononuclear cells from 14 healthy donors (age, 18-60y) were also included. TP73 transcripts were determined by qPCR and using survival ROC curve analysis and the C-index we dichotomized patients into "low" and "high" expression. Proportional hazard model on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was performed to evaluate prognosis. In addition, empty vector (EV) or ΔNp73α was transduced in NB4 and NB4R2 (RA-resistant) APL cell lines using a lentivirus system. The apoptosis rate was evaluated in both cell lines upon ATO (1 μM) treatment for 24, 48 and 72h. ΔNp73α, cleaved caspase 3 and Bcl-2 protein abundance was detected by western blotting. Granulocytic differentiation induced by RA-treatment (1 μM) alone or in combination with ATO (1 μM) for 72 h was assessed by CD11b surface levels. Finally, lethally irradiated 8-12 week old C57/BL6 Boy (CD45.1) were transplanted with hCG-PMLRARa Blasts (CD45.2) ΔNp73α or EV transduced (ΔNp73α group=16 and EV group=12). Results: Compared to normal BM, APL patients presented higher levels of ΔNp73 (p=.004), ΔEx2p73 (p=.008), and TP73β (p

Description: Background: Recently, the SLIT/ROBO axis became a therapeutic target for a variety of non-cerebral solid tumors because of its relevance in the regulation of angiogenesis, inflammatory cell chemotaxis, tumor cell migration and metastasis. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML), lower levels of SLIT2 expression were associated with poorer prognosis in studies that excluded patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) of the analysis (Golos et al., Arch Immunol 2019). Our group previously reported that higher SLIT2 expression was associated with improved overall survival, disease-free survival and decreased cumulative incidence of relapse. Subsequently, our in vitro functional studies indicated anti-proliferative effects exercised by exogenous SLIT2 peptide treatment in APL (Weinhauser et al., Blood 2018). Although, the expression of SLIT/ROBO was detected on leukemic cells, the fact that in healthy subjects the main source of SLIT2 derives from bone marrow stromal cells (BMSC) (Smith-Berdan et al., Cell Cycle 2012) was so far neglected in the context of hematological malignancies. Aims: Here, we expanded our data on the role of SLIT2 using lentivirally knocked down APL cells, and addressed the issue of the importance of BMSC-derived SLIT2 on APL development. Methods: NB4 and NB4R2 (RA-resistant) and primary APL cells (age, 25-47y; n=4) were transduced with shRNA-SLIT2 or shCT (control). After synchronization using double-thymidine block, transduced cells were submitted to proliferation and cell cycle assays. For the apoptosis analysis, cells were treated with ATO (1 µM) alone or in combination with RA (1 µM) for 24, 48 and 72 hours. The granulocytic differentiation in response to RA treatment alone (1 µM) or in combination with ATO (1 µM) for 48 and 72 hours, was evaluated based on the CD11b and CD11c levels. To assess the effect of SLIT2 silencing in BMSCs, HS5 and HS27A cell lines were transduced with shSLIT2 or shCT. Non-transduced NB4, NB4R2 and primary APL cells were co-cultured with engineered BMSCs and proliferation, apoptosis and granulocytic differentiation was performed in response to ATO alone or in combination with RA for 48 and 72 hours. In vivo assessment was performed using four 8-12 week-old C57/BL6PepBoy (CD45.1) lethally irradiated, transplanted with 5 x 106 hCG-PMLRARa blasts (CD45.2) transduced with shSlit2-murine and shCT. Results: Silencing SLIT2 in primary APL samples resulted in a significant increase in cell growth at the sixth day of culture compared to shCT samples (P

Description: Background : The recent efforts to uncover the molecular heterogeneity of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), mainly by new sequencing technologies, allow the comprehensive identification of driver mutations and/or altered gene expression recurrently found in a recognizable fraction of patients. Ongoing efforts are being made to clarify the impact of molecular changes on clinical phenotype and prognosis, as well as their role in the pathogenesis of MDS. Refining risk stratification allows the proposition of risk-adapted therapy and may shed light in biology of MDS. Aims: Based on the gene expression of selected metabolic targets, we aimed to design a score system that improves MDS overall survival prediction. Patients and methods: Clinical, mutations and transcriptomic data from CD34+ cells from 159 MDS patients and 17 healthy volunteers freely available at Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO/NCBI: GSE58831) were used in the present work. Forty-one genes related to metabolic processes, previously demonstrated as deregulated among diverse neoplastic conditions, were ranked and asked for differential expression and prognostic impact. Each gene was dichotomized according to Receiving-Operating Curve (ROC) and Cox Proportional-Hazard Model was used for multivariate analysis using gender, age and IPSS-R as cofounders. Genes independently associated with overall survival (OS) were selected to compose the Molecular-Based Score (MBS) and integer weight of each one was defined according Hazard Ratio (HR). Survival curves were constructed using Kaplan-Meyer method and compared with Log-Rank Test. ROC c-statistic was used to measure the predictive function of MBS. Prediction accuracy of MBS was cross-validated by a nonparametric bootstrap procedure with 1,000 resamplings of the original cohort allowing replacement and also estimated their respective 95% confidence interval (95% CI) computing the bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap interval. Results: Among selected genes, 18 were differentially expressed between CD34+ cells from MDS and healthy volunteers. Fifteen genes predict OS in univariate analysis, of which ACLY (HR: 0.48; 95%CI: 0.24 - 0.96; P=0.04), ANPEP (HR: 2.16; 95%CI: 1.08 - 4.31; P=0.02), PANK1 (HR: 0.43; 95%CI: 0.19 - 0.98; P=0.04), PKM (HR: 2.01; 95%CI: 1.02 - 3.93; P=0.04) and SLC25A5 (HR: 0.52; 95%CI: 0.27 - 0.99; P=0.05) were independently associated with OS. Higher expression of ANPEP and PKM, as well as lower expression of ACLY, PANK1 and SLC25A5 were considered to integer high risk being attributed weight 2 for each condition. MBS varied from 0 to 10 (median=2) and was calculated as: MBS Low-Risk =0 (MBS-LR; n=28); MBS Intermediate-Risk=2 and 4 (MBS-IR; n=90) and High-Risk: ≥6 (MBS-HR; n=48). The modeled MBS showed a ROC c-statistic of 0.699 (95%CI: 0.603 - 0.794) and HR=3.05 (95%CI: 1.81 - 5.05; P