Abstract 1733: SET-NUP214 rearranges the DNA-methylation landscape to upregulate the HOX-gene cluster in acute myeloid leukemia
Authors: Choudhury Samrat Roy , Kaushal Akhilesh 
Published: March 2024

The SET-NUP214 (S/N) fusion gene, which results from either cryptic t(9:9) (q34;q34) or del(9) (q34.11q34.13), is found in a very narrow spectrum of patients diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) or T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). AML patients with S/N fusion were reported to have relatively poor prognostic outcomes despite receiving myeloablative conditioning. While previously, the fusion has been described to overrepresent HOX cluster genes, the underlying mechanism of gene regulation that contributes to the pathology remains elusive due to the rare incidence of the disease. The current study used the MEGAL (ACC719, DSMZ) cell line, identified as the solo megakaryocytic AML line expressing the S/N-fusion, for determining genome-wide DNA methylation (DNAm) and gene expression using 935K Infinium MethylationEPIC v2.0 BeadChip array and RNA-sequencing, respectively. The differential DNAm and expression data were analyzed and compared to the hematopoietic stem progenitor cells (HSPC) or normal megakaryocytes (MK). The ChIP-sequencing data from the S/N positive T-ALL cell line LOUCY has been used to represent the coincidence of regulatory chromatin marks and differentially methylated CpG (mC) sites. We observed n=1934 genes upregulated and n=2396 downregulated in MEGAL, compared to both HSPC and MK. The direction of expression changes between MEGAL and HSPC and MEGAL and MK showed a high correlation (r=0.92, p&lt; 0.01). Per the previous literature, we observed an overrepresentation of HOX genes (n=19) in MEGAL. Based on DNAm profiling, we noticed a propensity of hypermethylation in MEGAL across the promoters (93%±0.6), bodies (93%±0.8), and intergenic (85%±0.3) regions, compared to HSPC/MK. Next, we integrated the mC and expression at the promoters and identified that the majority (75%±3) of the genes belong to the hyper-down (n=2563 against HPSC; n=1907 against MK) or hyper-up (n=965 against HPSC; n=923 against MK) clusters. We further investigated the HOXB (HOXB7, HOXB8, HOXB9) and HOXC (HOXC10, HOXC12, HOXC13, HOXC13-AS, HOXC4, HOXC5, HOC6, HOXC8, HOXC9, HOXC-AS1, HOXC-AS2, and HOXC-AS3) cluster genes, where hypermethylated CpGs mainly were concentrated at the CpG islands and overlapped with active promoter (H3K4me3, H3K4me1) signatures or enhancer-like (CTCF bound) elements. We also observed frequent overlaps between mC and H3K36me3 across the observed genes. The differentially expressed genes in this AML subtype were enriched for the hippo-signaling pathway, calcium signaling, focal adhesion, and PI3-Akt pathways. Collectively, our data showed that S/N favors genome-wide hypermethylation, which, in conjunction with the cis-regulatory elements, induces overrepresentation of the HOX cluster genes. These novel epigenetic vulnerabilities are worth pursuing for investigating the cellular function and pathophysiology of the disease.

Citation Format: Samrat Roy Choudhury, Akhilesh Kaushal. SET-NUP214 rearranges the DNA-methylation landscape to upregulate the HOX-gene cluster in acute myeloid leukemia [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 1733.