scholarly journals HOXA9 promotes MYC-mediated leukemogenesis by maintaining gene expression for multiple anti-apoptotic pathways

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Miyamoto ◽  
Akinori Kanai ◽  
Hiroshi Okuda ◽  
Satoshi Takahashi ◽  
Hirotaka Matsui ◽  
...  

AbstractHOXA9 is often highly expressed in leukemias. However, its precise roles in leukemogenesis remain elusive. Here, we show that HOXA9 maintains gene expression for multiple anti-apoptotic pathways to promote leukemogenesis. In MLL-rearranged leukemia, MLL fusion directly activates the expression of MYC and HOXA9. Combined expression of MYC and HOXA9 induced leukemia, whereas single gene transduction of either did not, indicating a synergy between MYC and HOXA9. HOXA9 sustained expression of the genes implicated to the hematopoietic precursor identity when expressed in hematopoietic precursors, but did not reactivate it once silenced. Among the HOXA9 target genes, BCL2 and SOX4 synergistically induced leukemia with MYC. Not only BCL2, but also SOX4 suppressed apoptosis, indicating that multiple anti-apoptotic pathways underlie cooperative leukemogenesis by HOXA9 and MYC. These results demonstrate that HOXA9 is a key transcriptional maintenance factor which promotes MYC-mediated leukemogenesis, potentially explaining why HOXA9 is highly expressed in many leukemias.

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryo Miyamoto ◽  
Akinori Kanai ◽  
Hiroshi Okuda ◽  
Yosuke Komata ◽  
Satoshi Takahashi ◽  
...  

HOXA9 is often highly expressed in leukemias. However, its precise roles in leukemogenesis remain elusive. Here, we show that HOXA9 maintains gene expression for multiple anti-apoptotic pathways to promote leukemogenesis. In MLL fusion-mediated leukemia, MLL fusion directly activates the expression of MYC and HOXA9. Combined expression of MYC and HOXA9 induced leukemia, whereas single gene transduction of either did not, indicating a synergy between MYC and HOXA9. HOXA9 sustained expression of the genes implicated in the hematopoietic precursor identity when expressed in hematopoietic precursors, but did not reactivate it once silenced. Among the HOXA9 target genes, BCL2 and SOX4 synergistically induced leukemia with MYC. Not only BCL2, but also SOX4 suppressed apoptosis, indicating that multiple anti-apoptotic pathways underlie cooperative leukemogenesis by HOXA9 and MYC. These results demonstrate that HOXA9 is a crucial transcriptional maintenance factor that promotes MYC-mediated leukemogenesis, potentially explaining why HOXA9 is highly expressed in many leukemias.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guiomar Martín ◽  
Yamile Márquez ◽  
Federica Mantica ◽  
Paula Duque ◽  
Manuel Irimia

Abstract Background Alternative splicing (AS) is a widespread regulatory mechanism in multicellular organisms. Numerous transcriptomic and single-gene studies in plants have investigated AS in response to specific conditions, especially environmental stress, unveiling substantial amounts of intron retention that modulate gene expression. However, a comprehensive study contrasting stress-response and tissue-specific AS patterns and directly comparing them with those of animal models is still missing. Results We generate a massive resource for Arabidopsis thaliana, PastDB, comprising AS and gene expression quantifications across tissues, development and environmental conditions, including abiotic and biotic stresses. Harmonized analysis of these datasets reveals that A. thaliana shows high levels of AS, similar to fruitflies, and that, compared to animals, disproportionately uses AS for stress responses. We identify core sets of genes regulated specifically by either AS or transcription upon stresses or among tissues, a regulatory specialization that is tightly mirrored by the genomic features of these genes. Unexpectedly, non-intron retention events, including exon skipping, are overrepresented across regulated AS sets in A. thaliana, being also largely involved in modulating gene expression through NMD and uORF inclusion. Conclusions Non-intron retention events have likely been functionally underrated in plants. AS constitutes a distinct regulatory layer controlling gene expression upon internal and external stimuli whose target genes and master regulators are hardwired at the genomic level to specifically undergo post-transcriptional regulation. Given the higher relevance of AS in the response to different stresses when compared to animals, this molecular hardwiring is likely required for a proper environmental response in A. thaliana.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guiomar Martín ◽  
Yamile Márquez ◽  
Federica Mantica ◽  
Paula Duque ◽  
Manuel Irimia

AbstractBackgroundAlternative splicing (AS) is a widespread regulatory mechanism in multicellular organisms. Numerous transcriptomic and single-gene studies in plants have investigated AS in response to specific conditions, especially environmental stress, unveiling substantial amounts of intron retention that modulate gene expression. However, a comprehensive study contrasting stress-response and tissue-specific AS patterns and directly comparing them with those of animal models is still missing.ResultsWe generated a massive resource for A. thaliana (PastDB; pastdb.crg.eu), comprising AS and gene expression quantifications across tissues, development and environmental conditions, including abiotic and biotic stresses. Harmonized analysis of these datasets revealed that A. thaliana shows high levels of AS (similar to fruitflies) and that, compared to animals, disproportionately uses AS for stress responses. We identified core sets of genes regulated specifically by either AS or transcription upon stresses or among tissues, a regulatory specialization that was tightly mirrored by the genomic features of these genes. Unexpectedly, non-intron retention events, including exon skipping, were overrepresented across regulated AS sets in A. thaliana, being also largely involved in modulating gene expression through NMD and uORF inclusion.ConclusionsNon-intron retention events have likely been functionally underrated in plants. AS constitutes a distinct regulatory layer controlling gene expression upon internal and external stimuli whose target genes and master regulators are hardwired at the genomic level to specifically undergo post-transcriptional regulation. Given the higher relevance of AS in the response to different stresses when compared to animals, this molecular hardwiring is likely required for a proper environmental response in A. thaliana.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Chan Zhang ◽  
Meng-Qi Lei ◽  
Yan-Fei Zhou ◽  
Yu-Wei Yang ◽  
Jian-Ping Lian ◽  
...  

AbstractPlant spermatogenesis is a complex process that directly affects crop breeding. A rapid change in gene abundance occurs at early meiosis prophase, when gene regulation is selective. However, how these genes are regulated remains unknown. Here, we show that rice reproductive phasiRNAs are essential for the elimination of a specific set of RNAs during meiotic prophase I. These phasiRNAs cleave target mRNAs in a regulatory manner such that one phasiRNA can target more than one gene, and/or a single gene can be targeted by more than one phasiRNA to efficiently silence target genes. Our investigation of phasiRNA-knockdown and PHAS-edited transgenic plants demonstrates that phasiRNAs and their nucleotide variations are required for meiosis progression and fertility. This study highlights the importance of reproductive phasiRNAs for the reprogramming of gene expression during meiotic progression and establishes a basis for future studies on the roles of phasiRNAs with a goal of crop improvement.


1996 ◽  
Vol 351 (1339) ◽  
pp. 511-515 ◽  

The POU family transcription factors Oct-2 and Brn-3 utilize different mechanisms to produce a variety of effects on gene expression particularly in the nervous system. In the case of Oct-2, a single gene produces a primary RNA transcript. This transcript then undergoes alternative splicing to yield a variety of different mRNAs encoding Oct-2 isoforms which either activate or repress gene expression. In contrast, three distinct genes encode the closely related Brn-3 factors, Brn-3a, Brn-3b and Brn-3c. Although the proteins encoded by the Brn-3a and Brn-3c genes activate their target genes Brn-3b represses these genes and can also interfere with activation by Brn-3a or c. These findings indicate that diverse mechanisms are used to generate activating or repressing forms of POU family transcription factors.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guiying Wu ◽  
Xiangyu Li ◽  
Wenbo Guo ◽  
Zheng Wei ◽  
Tao Hu ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTLarge number of samples are required to construct a reliable gene co-expression network, the samples from a single gene expression dataset are obviously not enough. However, batch effect may widely exist among datasets due to different experimental conditions. We proposed JEBIN (Joint Embedding of multiple BIpartite Networks) algorithm, it can learn a low-dimensional representation vector for each gene by integrating multiple bipartite networks, and each network corresponds to one dataset. JEBIN owns many inherent advantages, such as it is a nonlinear, global model, has linear time complexity with the number of genes, dataset or samples, and can integrate datasets with different distribution. We verified the effectiveness and scalability of JEBIN through a series of simulation experiments, and proved better performance on real biological data than commonly used integration algorithms. In addition, we conducted a differential co-expression analysis of hepatocellular carcinoma between the single-cell and bulk RNA-seq data, and also a contrast between the hepatocellular carcinoma and its adjacency samples using the bulk RNA-seq data. Analysis results prove that JEBIN can obtain comprehensive and stable gene co-expression networks through integrating multiple datasets and has wide prospect in the functional annotation of unknown genes and the regulatory mechanism inference of target genes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 477 (16) ◽  
pp. 3091-3104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana E. Giono ◽  
Alberto R. Kornblihtt

Gene expression is an intricately regulated process that is at the basis of cell differentiation, the maintenance of cell identity and the cellular responses to environmental changes. Alternative splicing, the process by which multiple functionally distinct transcripts are generated from a single gene, is one of the main mechanisms that contribute to expand the coding capacity of genomes and help explain the level of complexity achieved by higher organisms. Eukaryotic transcription is subject to multiple layers of regulation both intrinsic — such as promoter structure — and dynamic, allowing the cell to respond to internal and external signals. Similarly, alternative splicing choices are affected by all of these aspects, mainly through the regulation of transcription elongation, making it a regulatory knob on a par with the regulation of gene expression levels. This review aims to recapitulate some of the history and stepping-stones that led to the paradigms held today about transcription and splicing regulation, with major focus on transcription elongation and its effect on alternative splicing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (18) ◽  
pp. 2274-2284
Author(s):  
Faroogh Marofi ◽  
Jalal Choupani ◽  
Saeed Solali ◽  
Ghasem Vahedi ◽  
Ali Hassanzadeh ◽  
...  

Objective: Zoledronic Acid (ZA) is one of the common treatment choices used in various boneassociated conditions. Also, many studies have investigated the effect of ZA on Osteoblastic-Differentiation (OSD) of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs), but its clear molecular mechanism(s) has remained to be understood. It seems that the methylation of the promoter region of key genes might be an important factor involved in the regulation of genes responsible for OSD. The present study aimed to evaluate the changes in the mRNA expression and promoter methylation of central Transcription Factors (TFs) during OSD of MSCs under treatment with ZA. Materials and Methods: MSCs were induced to be differentiated into the osteoblastic cell lineage using routine protocols. MSCs received ZA during OSD and then the methylation and mRNA expression levels of target genes were measured by Methylation Specific-quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (MS-qPCR) and real.time PCR, respectively. The osteoblastic differentiation was confirmed by Alizarin Red Staining and the related markers to this stage. Results: Gene expression and promoter methylation level for DLX3, FRA1, ATF4, MSX2, C/EBPζ, and C/EBPa were up or down-regulated in both ZA-treated and untreated cells during the osteodifferentiation process on days 0 to 21. ATF4, DLX3, and FRA1 genes were significantly up-regulated during the OSD processes, while the result for MSX2, C/EBPζ, and C/EBPa was reverse. On the other hand, ATF4 and DLX3 methylation levels gradually reduced in both ZA-treated and untreated cells during the osteodifferentiation process on days 0 to 21, while the pattern was increasing for MSX2 and C/EBPa. The methylation pattern of C/EBPζ was upward in untreated groups while it had a downward pattern in ZA-treated groups at the same scheduled time. The result for FRA1 was not significant in both groups at the same scheduled time (days 0-21). Conclusion: The results indicated that promoter-hypomethylation of ATF4, DLX3, and FRA1 genes might be one of the mechanism(s) controlling their gene expression. Moreover, we found that promoter-hypermethylation led to the down-regulation of MSX2, C/EBP-ζ and C/EBP-α. The results implicate that ATF4, DLX3 and FRA1 may act as inducers of OSD while MSX2, C/EBP-ζ and C/EBP-α could act as the inhibitor ones. We also determined that promoter-methylation is an important process in the regulation of OSD. However, yet there was no significant difference in the promoter-methylation level of selected TFs in ZA-treated and control cells, a methylation- independent pathway might be involved in the regulation of target genes during OSD of MSCs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
NEHA SINGH ◽  
INDERJEET BHOGAL ◽  
ABHISHEK KUMAR ◽  
PUNIT TYAGI ◽  
GIRIJA SIKARWAR ◽  
...  

Acclimatization is a process that occurs in individual cells to a drastic change in micro and macro environments. When an organism is subjected to a new environment or a change in its normal growing conditions, the cellular mechanisms initiate a warning sign and over a period of time or over generations the acquired, modified traits are being communicated and fixed as a new trait. If there is lack of equilibrium within the cell due to over expression of a single gene or network of associated genes either manmade or due to mutations, the organism or plant tries to fix it by initiating gene regulatory mechanisms. According to our neutral theory of gene expression, always a cell tries to maintain its pH by modifying its cytosol through altered gene expression. In the present investigation, 198 AtMYB genes were analyzed and found to play an intrinsic photosystem linked network of 38 nodes where MYB being regulated by a set of 48 miRNAs. Members of the network have evidence-based link to energy related mechanisms. Altering gene expression to an extent where, the cell may not be able to fix it or a trait, which requires excessive energy loss escorts the organism’s gene regulation by breakdown of the introduced sequence over few generations. Events with constitutive overexpression may suffer poor performance over the years based on gene network prevailing in the crop of interest. Hence, network rewiring with minimal energy expenses is concerned.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 716-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Johnsen ◽  
Torsten Kubacki ◽  
Assa Yeroslaviz ◽  
Martin Richard Späth ◽  
Jannis Mörsdorf ◽  
...  

BackgroundAlthough AKI lacks effective therapeutic approaches, preventive strategies using preconditioning protocols, including caloric restriction and hypoxic preconditioning, have been shown to prevent injury in animal models. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the enhanced resistance to AKI conferred by such approaches is needed to facilitate clinical use. We hypothesized that these preconditioning strategies use similar pathways to augment cellular stress resistance.MethodsTo identify genes and pathways shared by caloric restriction and hypoxic preconditioning, we used RNA-sequencing transcriptome profiling to compare the transcriptional response with both modes of preconditioning in mice before and after renal ischemia-reperfusion injury.ResultsThe gene expression signatures induced by both preconditioning strategies involve distinct common genes and pathways that overlap significantly with the transcriptional changes observed after ischemia-reperfusion injury. These changes primarily affect oxidation-reduction processes and have a major effect on mitochondrial processes. We found that 16 of the genes differentially regulated by both modes of preconditioning were strongly correlated with clinical outcome; most of these genes had not previously been directly linked to AKI.ConclusionsThis comparative analysis of the gene expression signatures in preconditioning strategies shows overlapping patterns in caloric restriction and hypoxic preconditioning, pointing toward common molecular mechanisms. Our analysis identified a limited set of target genes not previously known to be associated with AKI; further study of their potential to provide the basis for novel preventive strategies is warranted. To allow for optimal interactive usability of the data by the kidney research community, we provide an online interface for user-defined interrogation of the gene expression datasets (http://shiny.cecad.uni-koeln.de:3838/IRaP/).


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