C/Ebpα Is an Essential Collaborator in Hoxa9/Meis1-Mediated Leukemogenesis
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
C/EBPα is an essential collaborator in Hoxa9/Meis1-mediated leukemogenesis Cailin Collinsa, Jingya Wanga, Hongzhi Miaoa, Joel Bronsteina, Humaira Nawera, Tao Xua, Maria Figueroaa, Andrew G. Munteana, and Jay L. Hessa,b,1 aDepartment of Pathology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; and bIndiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202 Edited* by Louis M. Staudt, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved May 19, 2014 (received for review February 12, 2014) Homeobox A9 (HOXA9) is a homeodomain-containing transcrip- with Hoxa9. In addition, C/EBP recognition motifs are enriched tion factor that plays a key role in hematopoietic stem cell expan- at Hoxa9 binding sites. sion and is commonly deregulated in human acute leukemias. A C/EBPα is a basic leucine-zipper transcription factor that plays variety of upstream genetic alterations in acute myeloid leukemia a critical role in lineage commitment during hematopoietic dif- −/− (AML) lead to overexpression of HOXA9, almost always in associ- ferentiation (18). Whereas Cebpa mice show complete loss of ation with overexpression of its cofactor meis homeobox 1 (MEIS1). the granulocytic compartment, recent work shows that loss of α A wide range of data suggests that HOXA9 and MEIS1 play a syn- C/EBP in adult HSCs leads to both an increase in the number ergistic causative role in AML, although the molecular mechanisms of functional HSCs and an increase in their proliferative and leading to transformation by HOXA9 and MEIS1 remain elusive. In repopulating capacity (19, 20). Conversely, CEBPA overexpression can promote transdifferentiation of a variety of fibroblastic cells to this study, we identify CCAAT/enhancer binding protein alpha (C/ the myeloid lineage and can induce monocytic differentiation in EBPα) as a critical collaborator required for Hoxa9/Meis1-mediated α MLL-fusion protein-mediated leukemias (21, 22). leukemogenesis. We show that C/EBP is required for the prolif- Although C/EBPα binds directly to target gene promoters, eration of Hoxa9/Meis1-transformed cells in culture and that loss increasing evidence suggests that it also regulates gene expres- α of C/EBP greatly improves survival in both primary and secondary sion through binding at promoter distal regulatory elements. For murine models of Hoxa9/Meis1-induced leukemia. Over 50% of example, C/EBPα has been reported to colocalize with Pu.1, Hoxa9 genome-wide binding sites are cobound by C/EBPα, which another critical regulator of hematopoiesis, at myeloid-specific coregulates a number of downstream target genes involved in the enhancers, where it acts to establish areas of chromatin acces- regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation. Finally, we sibility and facilitate the recruitment of signal-dependent tran- show that Hoxa9 represses the locus of the cyclin-dependent ki- scription factors (23). The ability of CEBPA to act as a pioneer nase inhibitors Cdkn2a/b in concert with C/EBPα to overcome transcription factor at enhancers suggests that it may play a a block in G1 cell cycle progression. Together, our results suggest similar role in HOXA9-driven leukemogenesis. a previously unidentified role for C/EBPα in maintaining the pro- To test this hypothesis, we used models allowing for condi- liferation required for Hoxa9/Meis1-mediated leukemogenesis. tional deletion of Cebpa in Hoxa9-transformed cells. We found that C/EBPα is critical for maintaining cellular proliferation in enhancer | gene regulation vitro and is a significant contributor to the severity of Hoxa9- mediated leukemia in vivo. Using genome-wide analysis, we found that C/EBPα colocalizes with Hoxa9 at promoter distal omeobox A9 (HOXA9) is a member of the highly conserved HHOX protein family of transcription factors, which play key roles in both development and hematopoiesis (1, 2). HOXA9 is Significance most highly expressed in long-term hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and early progenitors, where it promotes cellular pro- Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly heterogeneous form of cancer that results from the uncontrolled proliferation of liferation and is subsequently down-regulated during differenti- MEDICAL SCIENCES ation (3). Nearly one-half of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) primitive immune cells. Homeobox A9 (HOXA9) is an evolu- cases show up-regulation of HOXA9, which correlates strongly tionarily conserved transcription factor that is overexpressed in with poor prognosis (4–8) (Fig. S1). In most cases, up-regulation a large percentage of AML cases and is associated with a poor of HOXA9 is accompanied by up-regulation of its cofactor MEIS1, prognosis. Here, we show that CCAAT/enhancer binding pro- tein alpha (C/EBPα), a transcription factor involved in immune which colocalizes with HOXA9 at enhancers (9, 10). Although cell development that is commonly mutated in AML, is a critical overexpression of HOXA9 alone is sufficient for transformation collaborator required for HOXA9-mediated leukemic transfor- of HSCs in culture, coexpression with MEIS1 increases trans- mation. We also establish that the cell cycle regulator cyclin- formation efficiency and results in rapidly fatal leukemias in dependent kinase inhibitors Cdkn2a/b are corepressed by the transplanted animals (11). Hoxa9–C/EBPα complex. These findings suggest a novel func- A variety of upstream genetic alterations, including mixed- tional interaction between two leukemic transcription factors, MLL NPM1 NUP98 lineage leukemia ( ) translocations, mutations, HOXA9 and C/EBPα, that is altered in a large percentage of translocations, and CDX2 overexpression, lead to HOXA9 up- AML cases. regulation in AML; however, the mechanisms through which high levels of HOXA9 contribute to leukemic transformation – Author contributions: C.C., J.W., A.G.M., and J.L.H. designed research; C.C., J.W., H.M., are not known (12 16). It has been suggested that lineage- J.B., and H.N. performed research; T.X. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; C.C., J.W., specific “collaborator” proteins bind at relevant loci along with and M.F. analyzed data; and C.C., A.G.M., and J.L.H. wrote the paper. HOXA9 and its cofactors, PBX and MEIS proteins, to confer The authors declare no conflict of interest. both site specificity and transcriptional activity of the HOXA9 *This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor. complex (17). Recently, our group identified a number of po- Data deposition: The ChIP-sequencing and RNA-sequencing data reported in this paper tential Hoxa9 collaborators by characterizing the genome-wide have been deposited in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, www.ncbi.nlm.nih. binding sites of Hoxa9 and Meis1 in a murine myeloblastic cell gov/geo (accession no. GSE58362). line and by identifying proteins that interact with the Hoxa9 com- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. plex (9). One of these putative collaborators is CCAAT/enhancer This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. binding protein alpha (C/EBPα), which coimmunoprecipitates 1073/pnas.1402238111/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1402238111 PNAS | July 8, 2014 | vol. 111 | no. 27 | 9899–9904 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 + − enhancers, resulting in both target gene activation and re- Cebpaf/f;CreERT / (C/EBPα HM) cells with 4-hydroxytamoxifen pression. Finally, we identified the cyclin-dependent kinase (4OHT) leads to near complete loss of C/EBPα overthecourseof inhibitors Cdkn2a/b as critical targets of the Hoxa9–C/EBPα 8d(Fig.1B). Loss of C/EBPα leads to a dramatic decrease in cellular complex, whose repression likely contributes to the aberrant proliferation, whereas Cre induction in Hoxa9/Meis1-transformed + − proliferation required for Hoxa9-mediated leukemogenesis. WT;CreERT / (WT HM) cells has no effect (Fig. 1 C and D). Our previously published work using a Hoxa9-estrogen receptor Results tag (ER)/Meis1 conditional cell line established that loss of Hoxa9 C/EBPα Is Required for Hoxa9/Meis1-Mediated Transformation. We leads to a reduction in cellular proliferation, which is accompanied previously identified the lineage-specific transcription factor by differentiation of the cells into macrophages and induction of C/EBPα as a member of the myeloid Hoxa9 complex (9). To de- apoptosis (9). Although loss of C/EBPα also leads to a decrease in termine if C/EBPα is required for transformation by Hoxa9 and cellular proliferation, we did not observe terminal differentiation Meis1, we generated cell lines that allow for conditional deletion of these cells or induction of apoptosis (Fig. 1 E–H). Loss of C/ of Cebpa by retrovirally transducing bone marrow from Cebpaf/f; EBPα leads to the accumulation of cytoplasmic vacuoles at day + − CreERT / mice with Hoxa9/Meis1-GFP (Fig. 1A). We also 8(Fig.1E); however, this morphology did not progress with + − generated control cell lines from WT;CreERT / mice to control continued treatment of cells for 15 d. No changes in cellular for the effects of tamoxifen (OHT) treatment and Cre-mediated morphology were observed in the WT HM cells under the same toxicity. Continuous treatment of the Hoxa9/Meis1-transformed treatment conditions (Fig. 1F). Analysis of cell surface marker expression after loss of C/EBPα shows an increase in the im- mature cell surface marker c-Kit and either stable or decre- asingexpressioninthemyeloidsurfacemarkersCD11b,Gr1, F4/80, and Ly6C (Fig. 1G and Fig. S2). This phenotype persists across a 15-d time course, whereas no changes were seen in the WT HM control cells (Fig. 1G). These results are consistent with the known importance of C/EBPα in promoting myeloid differentiation, whereby cells lacking C/EBPα cannot initiate the full myeloid differentiation program (18). Furthermore, loss of C/EBPα does not lead to up-regulation of C/EBPβ and C/EBPe, which are also important mediators of myeloid differentiation (Fig. S3). We also tested whether loss of C/EBPα leads to induction of apoptosis by flow cytometry. No significant increase of apoptosis was seen after loss of C/EBPα compared with WT HM controls (Fig.