A Critical Role of YB-1 In NPMc-Induced Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Abstract 3149

Frameshift mutations in Nucleophosmin gene (NPM) are the most frequent abnormality in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), found in approximately 30% of all cases and 50% of patients with normal karyotype (NK) AML. NPM mutations result in an aberrant cytoplasmic localization of NPM protein (NPMc) through a loss of nucleolar localization signal accompanied by acquisition of new nuclear export signal. NPM mutations are heterozygous, so the other wild-type allele is consistently retained. NPMc binds to wild-type NPM through oligomerization domain and impairs its activity by delocalizing to the cytoplasm. It was reported that the NPM-null mice are early embryonic lethal and defective in primary hematopoiesis, suggesting important roles of NPM in early hematopoiesis. However, the molecular mechanism by which NPMc exerts its leukemogenic potential has never been established.

Here we show that ectopic expression of NPMc, but not wild type (WT) NPM, in mouse bone marrow (BM) cells enhanced their colony formation activity in methylcellulose media. Increased expression of HoxA7, 9 and 10 genes were observed in cells expressing NPMc but not in those expressing WT NPM. It has been reported that the expression levels of HOXA genes are upregulated in various types of AML including NPMc+ AML. Since overexpression of HoxA9 immortalizes hematopoietic progenitor cells, our findings suggest that up-regulation of HoxA genes are involved in NPMc-mediated leukemogenesis.

To clarify roles of NPMc in leukemogenesis, we purified the NPM protein complex and identified Y box-binding protein 1 (YB-1) as a binding partner for NPM. YB-1 belongs to the cold shock family and functions in gene transcription and RNA processing. YB-1 strongly bound to WT NPM but not to NPMc. In addition, interaction between YB-1 and NPM was impaired in the presence of NPMc. YB-1-deficient mice were embryonic lethal and their fetal liver were small. YB-1-deficient yolk sac cells showed decreased colony-forming activity, and decreased number of hematopoietic cells were observed when AGM region of YB-1-deficeint embryo were cultured on OP9 cells. Furthermore, expression of Hoxa9 was decreased in fetal liver cells derived from YB-1 knockout mice. To investigate the roles of YB-1 in NPMc-associated leukemogenesis, WT and YB-1-null E14.5 fetal liver cells were infected with retrovirus expressing NPMc. Analyses of colony-forming activity and mRNA expression showed that YB-1 was essential for NPMc-induced increases in colony formation activity as well as in expression of HoxA genes. However, YB-1 was not necessary for colony formation activity induced by other AML-associated fusion genes, such as AML1-MTG8 and MLL-AF10. These data indicate that YB-1 is specifically required for NPMc-induced leukemogenic transformation of hematopoietic cells.