2% of Healthy Newborns Reveal ETV6-RUNX1 Fusion By Genomic Inverse PCR for Exploration of Ligated Breakpoints (GIPFEL)

Pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is characterized by preleukemic recurrent chromosomal translocations that emerge in utero. The translocation t(12;21) resulting in the formation of the chimeric transcription factor ETV6-RUNX1 is the most frequent structural aberration occurring in 25% of B-cell precursor patients. A previous study suggested that ETV6-RUNX1-positive preleukemic cells are present in every hundredth human newborn, thus exceeding the actually observed incidence of ETV6-RUNX1-positive ALL in children (1/10,000) by a factor of 100. This finding strongly indicated that secondary cooperating oncogenic hits were necessary for development of overt leukemia. However, later studies could not confirm this high frequency.

To analyze the actual frequency of ETV6-RUNX1 preleukemic cells in newborns we developed a PCR-based method termed genomic inverse PCR for exploration of ligated breakpoints (GIPFEL) and applied this technique to a population-based retrospective screening of 300 cord blood samples from Danish newborns.

The GIPFEL method is capable of detecting the most common gene fusions associated with childhood leukemia without prior knowledge of the exact breakpoint. In contrast to previously used RNA-based methods, it relies on DNA as sample material, which is more stable than RNA. In the case of ETV6-RUNX1-positive leukemia GIPFEL exploits the unique presence of a genomic fragment joining material from chromosome 12 and 21. These fragments can be digested and re-circularized by ligation creating a junction across the restriction site whose sequence can be predicted from published genome data. The ligation site is independent of the translocation point within the individual DNA circle. Digestion of the breakpoint regions of the ETV6 and RUNX1 gene with the restriction enzyme SacI generates fragments smaller than 50 kb. Primer pairs amplify the complete set of theoretically predicted circularized fragments requiring 37 primers for the ETV6-RUNX1 translocation. Genomic DNA was prepared from mononuclear cells from cord blood samples of 300 newborns that were cryopreserved within 24 h (median 12 h) from birth. After B cell enrichment and column purification of DNA, the DNA was subjected to SacI restriction digest, ligated and remaining linear DNA was removed by exonuclease III. After ethanol precipitation the reaction products were subjected to a partially multiplexed, semi-nested PCR to quantify all possible ligation/junction products specific for the translocation. Samples that screened positive underwent one further demultiplexed PCR, agarose gelelectrophoresis and Sanger sequencing to validate the result and to identify the breakpoint region. An internal RUNX1 genomic ligation product served as a quality control and allowed the relative quantification of the translocation product. In previously published proof-of-principle blinded studies we tested 61 samples obtained from ETV6-RUNX1-positive ALL patients. Without any unspecific result, 64% for ETV6-RUNX1 fusion genes were detected in that sample set. The sensitivity of the technique was estimated to be 10^-4, i.e. one translocation carrying cell within 10,000 normal cells can theoretically be detected.

Within the analyzed cohort of 300 healthy newborns 6 screened positive for the ETV6-RUNX1 translocation (2%) (Table 1). Further 700 cord blood samples are currently screened.

Table 1: 6 of 300 cord blood samples from healthy newborns screened positive for the ETV6-RUNX1 translocation using the GIPFEL technique (Fueller E*, Schaefer D* et al. PloS One 2014, 9(8): e104419). Number of the positively tested healthy newborn within the cohort, used primers, and introns of RUNX1 and ETV6 affected by the translocation are presented.

Our results indicate that the actual incidence of ETV6-RUNX1-positive cells in healthy newborns might be even higher than previously assumed, potentially due to instability of the ETV6-RUNX1 RNA transcript in preserved cord blood samples. This would hint at a comparably low penetrance and leukemia inducing potential of the chimeric transcription factor ETV6-RUNX1 in human newborns and further strengthen the importance of secondary environmentally caused or spontaneously occurring cooperating oncogenic lesions for ETV6-RUNX1-positive childhood leukemia to emerge.

Table

View largeDownload slide

Table

View largeDownload slide

Close modal