Replication of Dengue Virus in K562-Megakaryocytes Induces Suppression in the Accumulation of Reactive Oxygen Species

Dengue virus can infect human megakaryocytes leading to decreased platelet biogenesis. In this article, we report a study of Dengue replication in human K562 cells undergoing PMA-induced differentiation into megakaryocytes. PMA-induced differentiation in these cells recapitulates steps of megakaryopoiesis including gene activation, expression of CD41/61 and CD61 platelet surface markers and accumulation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). Our results show differentiating megakaryocyte cells to support higher viral replication without any apparent increase in virus entry. Further, Dengue replication suppresses the accumulation of ROS in differentiating cells, probably by only augmenting the activity of the transcription factor NFE2L2 without influencing the expression of the coding gene. Interestingly pharmacological modulation of NFE2L2 activity showed a simultaneous but opposite effect on intracellular ROS and virus replication suggesting the former to have an inhibitory effect on the later. Also cells that differentiated while supporting intracellular virus replication showed reduced level of surface markers compared to uninfected differentiated cells.

Changes in chromatin accessibility landscape and histone H3 core acetylation during valproic acid-induced differentiation of embryonic stem cells

Directed differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides powerful models to dissect the molecular mechanisms leading to the formation of specific cell lineages. Treatment with histone deacetylase inhibitors can significantly enhance the efficiency of directed differentiation. However, the mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we use CUT&RUN in combination with ATAC-seq to determine changes in both histone modifications and genome-wide chromatin accessibility following valproic acid (VPA) exposure. VPA induced a significant increase in global histone H3 acetylation (H3K56ac), a core histone modification affecting nucleosome stability, as well as enrichment at loci associated with cytoskeletal organization and cellular morphogenesis. In addition, VPA altered the levels of linker histone H1 subtypes and the total histone H1/nucleosome ratio indicative of initial differentiation events. Notably, ATAC-seq analysis revealed changes in chromatin accessibility of genes involved in regulation of CDK serine/threonine kinase activity and DNA duplex unwinding. Importantly, changes in chromatin accessibility were evident at several key genomic loci, such as the pluripotency factor Lefty, cardiac muscle troponin Tnnt2, and the homeodomain factor Hopx, which play critical roles in cardiomyocyte differentiation. Massive parallel transcription factor (TF) footprinting also indicates an increased occupancy of TFs involved in differentiation toward mesoderm and endoderm lineages and a loss of footprints of POU5F1/SOX2 pluripotency factors following VPA treatment. Our results provide the first genome-wide analysis of the chromatin landscape following VPA-induced differentiation in mESCs and provide new mechanistic insight into the intricate molecular processes that govern departure from pluripotency and early lineage commitment.

Dexmedetomidine Promotes Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Differentiation of Cardiac Fibroblasts and Collagen I/III Synthesis through α2A Adrenoreceptor-Mediated Activation of the PKC-p38-Smad2/3 Signaling Pathway in Mice

Dexmedetomidine (DEX), a selective α2 adrenergic receptor (AR) agonist, is commonly used as a sedative drug during critical illness. In the present study, we explored a novel accelerative effect of DEX on cardiac fibroblast (CF) differentiation mediated by LPS and clarified its potential mechanism. LPS apparently increased the expression of α-SMA and collagen I/III and the phosphorylation of p38 and Smad-3 in the CFs of mice. These effects were significantly enhanced by DEX through increasing α2A-AR expression in CFs after LPS stimulation. The CFs from α2A-AR knockout mice were markedly less sensitive to DEX treatment than those of wild-type mice. Inhibition of protein kinase C (PKC) abolished the enhanced effects of DEX on LPS-induced differentiation of CFs. We also found that the α-SMA level in the second-passage CFs was much higher than that in the nonpassage and first-passage CFs. However, after LPS stimulation, the TNF-α released from the nonpassage CFs was much higher than that in the first- and second-passage CFs. DEX had no effect on LPS-induced release of TNF-α and IL-6 from CFs. Further investigation indicated that DEX promoted cardiac fibrosis and collagen I/III synthesis in mice exposed to LPS for four weeks. Our results demonstrated that DEX effectively accelerated LPS-induced differentiation of CFs to myofibroblasts through the PKC-p38-Smad2/3 signaling pathway by activating α2A-AR.

Repressed Chromatin Drives Leukaemogenesis in Mutant IDH2 Acute Myeloid Leukaemia Via Inhibition of Granulocyte Differentiation and Cell Cycle Progression

Differentiation arrest in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) results in accumulation of leukaemic progenitors (L-Prog) and bone marrow failure. Mutant isocitrate dehydrogenase enzyme produces d-2-hydroxyglutarate (2HG), which inhibits α-ketoglutarate-dependent dioxygenases, including Jumonji histone demethylases (JKDM) and TET2, but how this causes AML is unclear. Inhibitors of mutant IDH enzyme (mIDHi) restore differentiation in IDH-mutant (mIDH) AML (Amatangelo et al., 2018). Here, we studied transcriptional networks involved using single-cell (SC) gene expression (GEX) and transcription factor (TF) motif accessibility in primary AML treated with the mIDH2 inhibitor enasidenib (ENA) and found that ENA activates cell cycle (CC) and pro-differentiation programmes through increased promoter accessibility of granulocyte-monocyte (GM)-TF targets. We treated patient L-Prog in vitro with ENA or vehicle, and performed SC RNA-seq (Chromium 10x) in 4 responsive (R), and one non-responsive (NR) patient samples in early, mid and late timepoints. GEX signatures were used to annotate cells according to function (undifferentiated [U], early and late GM [EGM and LGM]) and CC states. In R samples, ENA yielded more dividing late-GM at mid-late timepoints than DMSO (18% vs 6.5%), and more terminally differentiated neutrophils at late timepoints (46% vs 16%). Using SCENIC (Aibar et al., 2017) to assign highly differentially-expressed genes to TF motifs, we computed regulatory networks (regulons, 'R'). Expression of the SP1 R was strongly correlated with active proliferation and ENA conditions led to generation of more cells that co-expressed CEBPA R or CEBPE R with SP1 R, emphasising simultaneous engagement of CC and GM programmes. SP1 function is associated with CC and GM differentiation, and silencing of its binding to its targets contributes to AML pathogenesis (Maiques-Diaz et al., 2012). Control and NR samples failed to produce neutrophils, had reduced co-expression of CEBPE/SP1 R and yielded more poorly differentiated cells expressing GATA2 R. At the individual gene level, ENA stimulated downregulation of GATA2, GFI1B, IKZF1/2, and RUNX3 together with upregulation of immediate early genes which respond to cytokine and mitogenic stimuli (EGR1, IER2, AP-1) in early-mid phase. Later there is upregulation of CEBP TFs and effector genes FUT4, ELANE, AZU1 and PRTN3. Interestingly, expression of some GM-TFs (RUNX1, SPI1/PU.1, GFI1) was similar between ENA and DMSO, indicating that gene expression alone was insufficient for GM differentiation. Given the effects of 2-HG on JKDM, we assessed chromatin accessibility and TF binding using SC ATAC-seq. Overall, we had 25% of differentially accessible (DA) peaks, from which 75% were more accessible in ENA than in DMSO. ENA DA peaks were highly enriched in promoters. Using ArchR (Granja et al., 2021), we clustered cells and used ELANE expression levels to compute trajectories in parallel with SC RNA-seq data. ENA peaks were sequentially enriched for CBF/RUNX and GATA families, followed by AP-1 (JUN/FOS) and EGR/CEBP/KLF motifs. Footprinting analysis showed sequential decrease and increase of TF binding for GATA2 and CEBPA/E respectively during ENA-induced differentiation. Although it did not cause higher expression of SPI1/PU.1, ENA induced increased accessibility of its target binding sites at promoters, which included CEBPA/E and GM effectors (MPO, FUT4, PRTN3). This provides a novel mechanism by which ENA induces differentiation of L-prog. Regulatory network analysis around active, differentially expressed TFs at different phases of ENA-induced differentiation showed a switch from a repressive transcriptional landscape driven by stem-progenitor TFs, to one where AP-1 and GM-TFs activate expression of GM-effector genes. We postulate a model where MYC, E2F8 and EGR1 upregulate the CEBP family in early-mid differentiation. In addition to stimulation of promoter accessibility of TFBS, we find that ENA increases accessibility of cis-regulatory elements of CEBP TFs, adding another mechanism by which differentiation of L-Prog occurs. Our data on the mechanism of action of ENA suggest that differentiation arrest in IDHm AML involves suppression of CC and GM differentiation programs in a repressive chromatin landscape, likely via inhibition of KDM6A and demethylation of repressive H3K27me3 marks. Disclosures Silveira: Astellas: Speakers Bureau; Abbvie: Speakers Bureau; Servier/Agios: Research Funding; BMS/Celgene: Research Funding. Hasan: Bristol Myers Squibb: Current Employment. Thakurta: Bristol Myers Squibb: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company, Patents & Royalties. Vyas: Gilead: Honoraria; Astellas: Consultancy, Honoraria; AbbVie: Consultancy, Honoraria; Takeda: Honoraria; Bristol Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Honoraria, Research Funding; Janssen: Honoraria; Daiichi Sankyo: Honoraria; Jazz: Honoraria; Pfizer: Honoraria; Novartis: Honoraria. Quek: BMS/Celgene: Research Funding; Servier/Agios: Research Funding.

FLT3 Inhibition Downregulates EZH2 in AML and Promotes Myeloid Differentiation

Internal tandem duplication mutations in the Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3-ITD) are frequently recurring in AML and confer a poor prognosis. FLT3 inhibitors (FLT3i) such as gilteritinib are efficacious in relapsed AML. Clinical responses to FLT3i include myeloid differentiation of the FLT3-ITD clone in about 50% of patients. How FLT3i induce this response in a subset of patients is unknown. The FLT3i-induced differentiation response seen in clinical trials has not previously been demonstrated in animal models. We modeled FLT3i-induced differentiation in murine Flt3 ITD/ITDDnmt3a -/- AML model (Meyer et al., Cancer Discovery, 2016). Treatment with FLT3i in vitro accelerated differentiation of cKIT+ leukemic splenocytes as assessed by colony morphology in serial re-plating assays. To characterize the differentiation response in vivo, we transplanted CD45.2+ leukemic splenocytes from moribund mice into sub-lethally irradiated healthy congenic CD45.1+ mice. After confirmation of engraftment at 2 weeks post-irradiation, mice were treated with vehicle or gilteritinib for 4 weeks. Animals treated with gilteritinib demonstrated increased neutrophil and decreased stem/progenitor cell populations, recapitulating the clinically observed increase in granulocytic differentiation of the FLT3-ITD clone. We next sought to understand the molecular mechanism of FLT3i-induced differentiation. We used a proteomic-based screen in a human AML cell line treated with FLT3i to identify novel targets of FLT3-ITD that could be potential mediators of the differentiation response. We identified downregulation of Enhancer of Zeste Homolog 2 (EZH2), the catalytic component of the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). EZH2 and PRC2 were previously shown to be required for leukemic maintenance in mouse models of MLL-AF9 AML. We treated murine Flt3 ITD/ITDDnmt3a -/- cKIT+ leukemic splenocytes with FLT3i or the EZH1/2 inhibitor (EZH1/2i). Both promoted myeloid differentiation to similar degrees as assessed by colony morphology in this model. We hypothesized that FLT3-ITD regulates EZH2 to maintain leukemia cells in a stem/progenitor cell state. We, therefore, characterized the effect of FLT3i on PRC2 in more detail. We confirmed that FLT3i decreases EZH2 protein levels in FLT3-ITD cell lines and primary human AML within 24 hours of treatment as suggested by our proteomic data (Figure 1A-B). We found that the mechanism of EZH2 downregulation is complex with both transcriptional effects and a decrease in EZH2 protein half-life. ChIP-Seq for H3K27me3 demonstrated decreased peaks at the transcription start sites of PRC2 target genes (Figure 1C). RNA-Seq gene expression profiles of FLT3i- and EZH1/2i-treated human AML cells overlapped at 253 differentially expressed genes (Figure 1D). Critically, both FLT3i and EZH1/2i expression profiles enriched in differentiated myeloid cell gene signatures. Overall, we found that EZH2 is a novel, unexpected, and clinically relevant target of FLT3-ITD. Our data suggest that reduced EZH2 activity following FLT3 inhibition promotes myeloid differentiation of FLT3-ITD leukemic cells, providing a mechanistic explanation for the FLT3i-induced differentiation response seen in patients. These data demonstrate that FLT3-ITD has at least two functions in leukemogenesis, the well described activation of signaling pathways, and second, a previously undefined, regulation of PRC2 to maintain a myeloid stem cell state. Our results may lead to improved approaches to therapy for FLT3 mutated AML. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Bernt: Syndax: Research Funding; Merck: Other: Spouse is an employee of Merck.. Carroll: Incyte Pharmaceuticals: Research Funding; Janssen Pharmaceutical: Consultancy.

STAT5 Signaling Promotes Resistance to Ivosidenib in IDH1-Mutated AML

Mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) promote leukemic transformation through the production of an oncometabolite, 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG). Ivosidenib is an inhibitor of mutant IDH1 approved for the treatment of IDH1-mutated AML. Treatment with ivosidenib can induce terminal differentiation of leukemic blasts via suppression of 2-HG. However, ivosidenib as a single agent has limited efficacy, highlighting the need to better understand the mechanisms of drug resistance. The study of drug resistance mechanisms has been hindered by the lack of IDH1/2-mutated AML cell lines models. To address this issue, we derived an Idh1-mutated AML cell line from bone marrow cells of a murine AML model generated by crossing mice expressing mutant Idh1R132H with mice expressing mutant Npm1 (Npm1c). This cell line (henceforth termed "OCI-mIDH1/N") undergoes partial myeloid differentiation in response to ivosidenib treatment in vitro. The establishment of OCI-mIDH1/N enabled us to perform a genome-wide CRISPR knockout screen to identify genes that upon inactivation, increased the differentiation response to ivosidenib. Through this screen, we identified C-type lectin member 5a (Clec5a) as one of the top hits. Clec5a encodes a cell surface receptor that signals through the intracellular spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK). To confirm this hit, we generated Clec5a knockout clones of OCI-mIDH1/N cells. Consistent with results of the screen, ivosidenib treatment induced higher levels of Gr-1, a myeloid differentiation marker, on Clec5a-/- cells than on parental Clec5a+/+ cells. Next, we investigated the role in SYK. Clec5a-/- cells had lower levels of pSYK compared with Clec5a+/+ cells, and overexpression of Syk in Clec5a-/- cells reversed their sensitization to ivosidenib. Furthermore, direct inhibition of SYK with fostamatinib was sufficient to sensitize Clec5a+/+ cells to ivosidenib. Our findings show that CLEC5A-SYK signaling promotes resistance to ivosidenib-induced differentiation. Mechanistically, we found that CLEC5A-SYK signaling drives ivosidenib resistance through STAT5 dependent expression of self-renewal genes in the HOX family. Clec5a-/- and Syk-/- OCI-mIDH1/N cells exhibited lower levels of STAT5 activation compared with wildtype cells. Furthermore, SYK inhibitor treatment downregulated pSTAT5 and decreased STAT5 occupancy at HOX gene clusters. Functionally, overexpression of constitutively active STAT5 in Clec5a-/- and Syk-/- cells reversed their heightened sensitivity to ivosidenib and increased the expression of key HOX self-renewal genes. To determine the clinical relevance of these findings, we analyzed two independent RNA-seq datasets from patients treated with IDH inhibitors (Quek et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2021). Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that poor responders expressed significantly higher levels of STAT5 target genes compared with responders in both datasets. Mutations in the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) pathway have previously been shown to be associated with resistance to IDH inhibitors. Given that these pathways signal through STAT5, we hypothesized that the mechanism by the RTK mutations confer ivosidenib resistance is through STAT5 activation. To test this hypothesis, we ectopically expressed KRASG12D or PTPN11E76G in OCI-mIDH1/N cells. Expression of the oncogenes increased pSTAT5 and conferred resistance to ivosidenib-induced differentiation. Importantly, knockdown of Stat5 completely restored their sensitivity to ivosidenib, in support for our hypothesis. Next, we tested if the STAT5 inhibitor pimozide synergizes with ivosidenib to treat patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of human IDH1-mutated AML. In two PDX models where ivosidenib alone induced moderate differentiation, the addition of pimozide to ivosidenib significantly increased the expression of myeloid differentiation markers on AML cells. In two PDX models where ivosidenib alone induced no differentiation, pimozide alone was sufficient to induce profound differentiation of AML cells. Collectively, these results suggest that ivosidenib resistant cells shift their dependence from 2-HG to STAT5 to maintain their undifferentiated state. In summary, our findings demonstrate that STAT5 is a critical mediator of resistance to ivosidenib, and combination therapy with pimozide and ivosidenib is a promising therapeutic approach for IDH1-mutated AML. Disclosures Chan: BMS: Research Funding; AbbVie: Research Funding.

Human Glioma Cells Therapy Using ATRA-Induced Differentiation Method to Promote the Inhibitive Effect of TMZ and CCDP

The glioma stem cells (GSCs) performed the self-renewal, proliferation, and differentiation characteristics; their drug resistance has become the main reason for glioma clinical treatment failure. All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is an important inducer of cell differentiation, applied in the treatment of hematologic diseases and other solid tumors. ATRA is a fat-soluble compound, which can easily go through the blood-brain barrier. Therefore, in this study, ATRA was used to induce the differentiation of glioma cells and glioma stem cells, reducing the degree of malignancy and improving its chemotherapy resistance. Methods and Treatment. The results of IF and PCR showed that the expression of CD133 was significantly lower than those of undifferentiated cells. Furthermore, temozolomide (TMZ) and cisplatin (CDDP), the first-line drugs, were used for the treatment of GCs and GSCs. The MTT assay results showed that the effect of the combination of the two drugs was significantly stronger than that of one of them alone. Results. Moreover, the MTT assay also demonstrated that TMZ single, CDDP single, and the combination of TMZ and CDDP can inhibit the proliferation of GCs, ATRA-GCs, GSCs, and ATRA-GSCs in a dose- and time-dependent manner; and ATRA-induced differentiation could promote those drugs inhibition effect and increased the chemotherapy sensitivity. Conclusion. Therefore, we successfully purified the suspension spherical glioma stem cells. Moreover, ATRA was demonstrated to induce the differentiation of GCs and GSCs. Furthermore, ATRA-induced differentiation promotes the inhibitive effect of TMZ and CCDP treatment on the proliferation of primary human glioma cells and glioma stem cells, suggesting that ATRA could increase the chemotherapy sensitivity of TMZ and CCDP through inducing cell differentiation. The combination of TMZ and CCDP performed a synergistic role in inhibiting the proliferation of GCs and GSCs.