Genetic Ablation of the ABC Transporter Abcc4 Impairs Lymphoid Leukemogenesis
Authors: Crawford Rebecca R. , Cheepala Satish , Lian Shangli , Fukuda Yu , Wang Yao , Schuetz John D. 
Published: June 2021

ABCC4 is an ABC transporter of the C sub‐family that is ubiquitously expressed and exports key endogenous compounds including cAMP and prostaglandins, and cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. cAMP and prostaglandins are signaling molecules that, among other functions, regulate thymocyte development and function. Thymocyte progenitors, IL7 receptor positive cells, migrate from the bone marrow to the thymus and give rise to mature T‐cells. The maturation of thymocytes can be followed by monitoring for the presence of surface markers CD4 and CD8. Briefly, thymocytes are initially double negative (DN) cells, with neither CD4 nor CD8; after T‐cell receptor rearrangement, CD4 and CD8 are expressed on double positive cells (DP), which following positive and negative selection, become mature, single positive (SP) cells expressing either CD4 or CD8. Abcc4 is highly expressed in DP and CD4‐positve thymocytes, while being undetectable in DN thymocytes from wild‐type (WT) mice, suggesting a developmental regulation of Abcc4. Therefore, we hypothesized that ablation of Abcc4 from mice would lead to aberrant T‐cell development and function.

ABCC4 absence had no measureable impact on the number of hematopoietic progenitors. We hypothesized that lymphoid progenitors in Abcc4‐knockout(KO) mice may have an impaired leukemogenesis potential. To test this hypothesis, hematopoietic progenitors from Abcc4‐KO or WT mice were transduced with a retrovirus harboring a MYCN cDNA, a known driver of lymphoid leukemia, and subsequently transplanted into lethally irradiated congenic WT recipient mice. Mice transplanted with either WT or Abcc4‐KO MYCN‐transduced hematopoietic progenitors developed both B‐ and T‐cell leukemia, with tumors expressing Abcc4 on the plasma membrane. Kaplan‐Meier survival analysis revealed that mice transduced with Abcc4‐KO progenitors had a dramatic increase in median survival from 81.5 days in mice who received WT progenitors to 112 days in mice who received Abcc4‐KO progenitors. These studies suggested the lymphoid progenitors from Abcc4‐KO mice harbored an intrinsic defect manifested by reduced lymphoid leukemia. This was further investigated by performing a competitive bone‐marrow transplantation experiment. Briefly, hematopoietic progenitors from Abcc4‐KO and wildtype mice were isolated and mixed in equal numbers (each harboring a different surface marker to enable identification), then transplanted into congenic wildtype mice following lethal irradiation; subsequently the differentiated lymphoid progeny were identified in the peripheral blood. These studies revealed that the number of CD4+ cells from Abcc4‐KO donors was reduced, thus confirming a defect in Abcc4‐KO lymphoid progenitors. A defect in peripheral thymocyte function is also a potential mechanism, as genes in the arachidonic acid pathway regulate further differentiation and function of mature thymocytes. We discovered altered expression of genes in the arachidonic acid pathway such as Cox‐1 and Ptger4, when compared to age‐matched WT mice. These data suggest that genetic ablation of Abcc4 has an effect on arachidonic acid signaling, which may in turn affect thymocyte function.

Overall, the data presented herein suggest that ABCC4 impacts lymphoid progenitors and differentiated thymocytes. One implication of these findings is that deficiency or insufficiency of ABCC4 may reduce the possibility of developing lymphoid malignancies.

Support or Funding Information

This work was funded by NIH and ALSAC

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.