Single Cell RNA-Seq Characterises Pre-Leukemic Transformation Driven By CEBPA N321D in the Hoxb8-FL Cell Line

The C/EBPα transcription factor plays a pivotal role in myeloid differentiation and E2F-mediated cell cycle regulation. Although CEBPA mutations are common in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), little is known regarding pre-leukemic alterations caused by mutated CEBPA. Here, we investigated early events involved in pre-leukemic transformation driven by CEBPA N321D in the LMPP-like cell line Hoxb8-FL (Redecke et al., Nat Methods 2013), which can be maintained in vitro as a self-renewing LMPP population using Flt3L and estradiol, as well as differentiated both in vitro and in vivo into myeloid and lymphoid cell types. Hoxb8-FL cells were retrovirally transduced with Empty Vector (EV), wild-type CEBPA (CEBPA WT) or its N321D mutant form (CEBPA N321D). CEBPA WT-transduced cells showed increased expression of cd11b and SIRPα and downregulation of c-kit, suggesting that wild-type CEBPA was sufficient to promote differentiation even under LMPP growth conditions. Interestingly, we did not observe the same phenotype in CEBPA N321D-transduced cells. Upon withdrawal of estradiol, both EV and CEBPA WT-transduced cells differentiated rapidly into a conventional dendritic cell (cDC) phenotype by day 7 and died within 12 days. By contrast, CEBPA N321D-transduced cells continued to grow for in excess of 56 days, with an initial cDC phenotype but by day 30 demonstrating a plasmacytoid dendritic cell precursor phenotype. CEBPA N321D-transduced cells were morphologically distinct from EV-transduced cells. To test leukemogenic potential in vivo, we performed transplantation experiments in lethally irradiated mice. Serial monitoring of peripheral blood demonstrated that Hoxb8-FL derived cells had disappeared by 4 weeks, and did not reappear. However, at 6 months CEBPA N321D-transduced cells could still be detected in bone marrow in contrast to EV-transduced cells but without any leukemic phenotype. To identify early events involved in pre-leukemic transformation, the differentiation profiles of EV, CEBPA WT and CEBPA N321D-transduced cells were examined with single cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq). 576 single cells were taken from 3 biological replicates at days 0 and 5 post-differentiation, and analysed using the Automated Single-Cell Analysis Pipeline (Gardeux et al., Bioinformatics 2017). Visualisation by t-SNE (Fig 1) demonstrated: (i) CEBPA WT-transduced cells formed a distinct cluster at day 0 before withdrawal of estradiol; (ii) CEBPA N321D-transduced cells separated from EV and CEBPA WT-transduced cells after 5 days of differentiation, (iii) two subpopulations could be identified within the CEBPA N321D-transduced cells at day 5, with a cluster of five CEBPA N321D-transduced single cells distributed amongst or very close to the day 0 non-differentiated cells. Differential expression analysis identified 224 genes upregulated and 633 genes downregulated specifically in the CEBPA N321D-transduced cells when compared to EV cells after 5 days of differentiation. This gene expression signature revealed that CEBPA N321D-transduced cells switched on a HSC/MEP/CMP transcriptional program and switched off a myeloid dendritic cell program. Finally, in order to further dissect the effect of the N321D mutation, the binding profile of endogenous and CEBPA N321D was compared by ChIP-seq before and after 5 days of differentiation. Integration with scRNA-seq data identified 160 genes specifically downregulated in CEBPA N321D-transduced cells which were associated with the binding of the mutant protein. This list of genes included genes previously implicated in dendritic cell differentiation (such as NOTCH2, JAK2), as well as a number of genes not previously implicated in the evolution of AML, representing potentially novel therapeutic targets. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.