Dysregulated Expression of miRNAs in Polycythemia Vera Erythroid Progenitors.

Polycythemia vera (PV), the most common myeloproliferative disorder, arises due to somatic mutation(s) of a single hematopoietic stem cell leading to clonal hematopoiesis. A somatic JAK2 V617F point mutation is found in over 80% of PV patients; however, it is not clear if the JAK2 V617F is the disease initiating mutation, since there are PV JAK2 V617F negative patients who have monoclonal hematopoiesis and erythropoietin independent erythropoiesis; in individual PV families, there are PV subjects with and without the JAK2 V617F mutation; and analysis of clonal PV populations reveals the presence of 50% mutated JAK2 cells (Nussenzweig’ abstract this mtg), suggesting a mixed population of cells with regard to JAK2 status. In order to search for possible PV contributing molecular defect(s), we studied microRNAs (miRNAs) in a homogeneous population of in vitro expanded erythroid progenitors. MiRNAs are non-coding, small RNAs that regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level by direct mRNA cleavage, by translational repression, or by mRNA decay mediated by deadenylation. MiRNAs play an important regulatory role in various biological processes including human hematopoiesis. In vitro expanded erythroid progenitors were obtained from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 5 PV patients (JAK2 V617F heterozygotes) and from 2 healthy donor controls. The cells were cultured in an erythroid-expansion medium for 21 days resulting in 70–80% homogenous erythroid cell population of identical differentiation stage. Gene expression profiling of miRNAs (Thomson, Nature Methods, 1:1, 2004) was performed using a custom microarray (Combimatrix) with 326 miRNA probes. Data were normalized by the global median method. The miRNAs with expression ratios greater than 1.5 or less than 0.5 were considered to be abnormal. Comparative analyses of controls versus PV samples revealed up-regulated expression of miR-let7c/f, miR-16, miR-451, miR-21, miR-27a, miR-26b and miR-320 and down-regulation of miR-150, miR-339 and miR-346 in PV. In addition, miR-27a, miR-26b and miR-320 were expressed only in PV. The putative targets of these miRNAs were predicted by TargetScan prediction algorithm. Up-regulated miR-let-7, miR-16 and miR-26b may modulate cyclin D2, which has an important role in G1/S transition and can be a target in the JAK2/STAT5 pathway (Walz, JBC, 281:18177, 2006). One of the putative targets of up-regulated miR-27a is EDRF1 (erythroid terminal differentiation related factor1), a positive regulator of erythroid differentiation. The BCL-6 gene is predicted to be the target of miR-339 and miR-346, and its activation blocks cellular differentiation. MiR-16 is known to be down-regulated in CLL, where it targets anti-apoptotic BCL-2; in contrast, we show that miR-16 is up-regulated in PV erythroid cells. We identified differentially expressed miRNAs in PV which target genes involved in the JAK/STAT pathway or genes that are modulated by JAK2 downstream molecules. This study indicates that miRNA dysregulation may play an important role in erythropoietic differentiation and proliferation in PV. Expression analyses of these miRNAs in a larger set of PV samples, using quantitative Real-Time-PCR, are in progress. Further, earlier erythroid and pluripotent hematopoietic progenitors are also being analyzed.