Treatment strategies for polycythemia vera: Observations in a Dutch "real-world" cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: Assessment of "real-world" treatment strategies and outcome in Dutch polycythemia vera (PV) patients. METHODS: Retrospective chart review in 150 patients with PV (WHO 2008 diagnostic criteria) from 10 major non-academic hospitals in the Netherlands. RESULTS: Patients (median age 64 years, 49% male) frequently had cardiovascular risk factors (56%) and prior vascular events (31%). About 70% of patients were high-risk, based on ELN criteria. However, the majority of patients were treated with phlebotomies alone (55%). Cytoreduction with hydroxyurea (HU) was received by 44% as part of their initial therapy, with or without phlebotomies. The time to achieve the 45% hematocrit target was shortest in patients treated with phlebotomies with or without HU (125 ± 99 and 197 ± 249 days, respectively) compared to patients treated with only HU (232 ± 216 days). Leukocyte and platelet levels were lower in HU-treated patients, and ELN response targets were more often reached. During the median follow-up period of 4.1 years, 14 patients (9%) suffered a thrombotic vascular event. CONCLUSIONS: In Dutch clinical practice, there is major clinical variation in treatment strategies for PV. Phlebotomizing patients shorten the time to achieve hematocrit control, while HU better controls platelet and leukocyte levels. The thrombotic vascular event rate remains clinically significant.

Cellular barcoding tool for clonal analysis in the hematopoietic system.

Clonal analysis is important for many areas of hematopoietic stem cell research, including in vitro cell expansion, gene therapy, and cancer progression and treatment. A common approach to measure clonality of retrovirally transduced cells is to perform integration site analysis using Southern blotting or polymerase chain reaction-based methods. Although these methods are useful in principle, they generally provide a low-resolution, biased, and incomplete assessment of clonality. To overcome those limitations, we labeled retroviral vectors with random sequence tags or "barcodes." On integration, each vector introduces a unique, identifiable, and heritable mark into the host cell genome, allowing the clonal progeny of each cell to be tracked over time. By coupling the barcoding method to a sequencing-based detection system, we could identify major and minor clones in 2 distinct cell culture systems in vitro and in a long-term transplantation setting. In addition, we demonstrate how clonal analysis can be complemented with transgene expression and integration site analysis. This cellular barcoding tool permits a simple, sensitive assessment of clonality and holds great promise for future gene therapy protocols in humans, and any other applications when clonal tracking is important.

Physical exercise leads to rapid adaptations in hippocampal vasculature: temporal dynamics and relationship to cell proliferation and neurogenesis.

Increased levels of angiogenesis and neurogenesis possibly mediate the beneficial effects of physical activity on hippocampal plasticity. This study was designed to investigate the temporal dynamics of exercise-induced changes in hippocampal angiogenesis and cell proliferation. Mice were housed with a running wheel for 1, 3, or 10 days. Analysis of glucose transporter Glut1-positive vessel density showed a significant increase after 3 days of wheel running. Cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus showed a trend towards an increase after 3 days of running and was significantly elevated after 10 days of physical exercise. Ten days of wheel running resulted in a near-significant increase in the number of immature neurons, as determined by a doublecortin (DCX) staining. In the second part of the study, the persistence of the exercise-induced changes in angiogenesis and cell proliferation was determined. The running wheel was removed from the cage after 10 days of physical activity. Glut-1 positive vessel density and hippocampal cell proliferation were determined 1 and 6 days after removal of the wheel. Both parameters had returned to baseline 24 h after cessation of physical activity. The near-significant increase in the number of DCX-positive immature neurons persisted for at least 6 days, indicating that new neurons formed during the period of increased physical activity had survived. Together these experiments show that the hippocampus displays a remarkable angiogenic and neurogenic plasticity and rapidly responds to changes in physical activity.

CBX7 Induces Self-Renewal of Human Normal and Malignant Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells by Canonical and Non-canonical Interactions.

In this study, we demonstrate that, among all five CBX Polycomb proteins, only CBX7 possesses the ability to control self-renewal of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Xenotransplantation of CBX7-overexpressing HSPCs resulted in increased multi-lineage long-term engraftment and myelopoiesis. Gene expression and chromatin analyses revealed perturbations in genes involved in differentiation, DNA and chromatin maintenance, and cell cycle control. CBX7 is upregulated in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and its genetic or pharmacological repression in AML cells inhibited proliferation and induced differentiation. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed several non-histone protein interactions between CBX7 and the H3K9 methyltransferases SETDB1, EHMT1, and EHMT2. These CBX7-binding proteins possess a trimethylated lysine peptide motif highly similar to the canonical CBX7 target H3K27me3. Depletion of SETDB1 in AML cells phenocopied repression of CBX7. We identify CBX7 as an important regulator of self-renewal and uncover non-canonical crosstalk between distinct pathways, revealing therapeutic opportunities for leukemia.

Hippocampal cell proliferation across the day: increase by running wheel activity, but no effect of sleep and wakefulness.

The present study investigated whether proliferation of hippocampal progenitors is subject to circadian modulation. Mice were perfused using 3h intervals throughout the light-dark cycle and brains were stained for Ki-67. Since Ki-67 is not expressed during the G0 phase of the cell cycle, we expected a decline in Ki-67 expression at the moment cells synchronously exit the cell cycle. However, despite the fact that various hippocampal factors fluctuate across the day, the number of dividing cells remained constant. In a second experiment, we studied whether disturbance of normal sleep affected the stable rate in cell proliferation. Our data show that 12h of sleep deprivation during the light phase did not influence proliferating cell number. A third experiment investigated whether physical activity, a condition known to enhance hippocampal cell proliferation, caused an elevation of the steady baseline number of proliferating progenitors, or a peak directly following the active phase of the animals. Mice were housed with a running wheel for 9 days. On the last day, animals were sacrificed either directly before or directly after the active phase. Exercise significantly promoted cell proliferation and this effect appeared to be strongest directly after the active period and to disappear during the resting phase. Our data suggest that hippocampal cell proliferation is not synchronized under basal conditions and is unchanged by sleep deprivation. However, running affected cell proliferation differentially at two times of day. These data demonstrate that the steady rate in cell proliferation is not indispensable, but can be changed by behavioral activity.

Specific protein homeostatic functions of small heat-shock proteins increase lifespan.

During aging, oxidized, misfolded, and aggregated proteins accumulate in cells, while the capacity to deal with protein damage declines severely. To cope with the toxicity of damaged proteins, cells rely on protein quality control networks, in particular proteins belonging to the family of heat-shock proteins (HSPs). As safeguards of the cellular proteome, HSPs assist in protein folding and prevent accumulation of damaged, misfolded proteins. Here, we compared the capacity of all Drosophila melanogaster small HSP family members for their ability to assist in refolding stress-denatured substrates and/or to prevent aggregation of disease-associated misfolded proteins. We identified CG14207 as a novel and potent small HSP member that exclusively assisted in HSP70-dependent refolding of stress-denatured proteins. Furthermore, we report that HSP67BC, which has no role in protein refolding, was the most effective small HSP preventing toxic protein aggregation in an HSP70-independent manner. Importantly, overexpression of both CG14207 and HSP67BC in Drosophila leads to a mild increase in lifespan, demonstrating that increased levels of functionally diverse small HSPs can promote longevity in vivo.

Tracing dynamics and clonal heterogeneity of Cbx7-induced leukemic stem cells by cellular barcoding.

Accurate monitoring of tumor dynamics and leukemic stem cell (LSC) heterogeneity is important for the development of personalized cancer therapies. In this study, we experimentally induced distinct types of leukemia in mice by enforced expression of Cbx7. Simultaneous cellular barcoding allowed for thorough analysis of leukemias at the clonal level and revealed high and unpredictable tumor complexity. Multiple LSC clones with distinct leukemic properties coexisted. Some of these clones remained dormant but bore leukemic potential, as they progressed to full-blown leukemia after challenge. LSC clones could retain multilineage differentiation capacities, where one clone induced phenotypically distinct leukemias. Beyond a detailed insight into CBX7-driven leukemic biology, our model is of general relevance for the understanding of tumor dynamics and clonal evolution.

Polycomb Cbx family members mediate the balance between haematopoietic stem cell self-renewal and differentiation.

The balance between self-renewal and differentiation of adult stem cells is essential for tissue homeostasis. Here we show that in the haematopoietic system this process is governed by polycomb chromobox (Cbx) proteins. Cbx7 is specifically expressed in haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), and its overexpression enhances self-renewal and induces leukaemia. This effect is dependent on integration into polycomb repressive complex-1 (PRC1) and requires H3K27me3 binding. In contrast, overexpression of Cbx2, Cbx4 or Cbx8 results in differentiation and exhaustion of HSCs. ChIP-sequencing analysis shows that Cbx7 and Cbx8 share most of their targets; we identified approximately 200 differential targets. Whereas genes targeted by Cbx8 are highly expressed in HSCs and become repressed in progenitors, Cbx7 targets show the opposite expression pattern. Thus, Cbx7 preserves HSC self-renewal by repressing progenitor-specific genes. Taken together, the presence of distinct Cbx proteins confers target selectivity to PRC1 and provides a molecular balance between self-renewal and differentiation of HSCs.

Polycomb group proteins in hematopoietic stem cell aging and malignancies.

Protection of the transcriptional "stemness" network is important to maintain a healthy hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) compartment during the lifetime of the organism. Recent evidence shows that fundamental changes in the epigenetic status of HSCs might be one of the driving forces behind many age-related HSC changes and might pave the way for HSC malignant transformation and subsequent leukemia development, the incidence of which increases exponentially with age. Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are key epigenetic regulators of HSC cellular fate decisions and are often found to be misregulated in human hematopoietic malignancies. In this review, we speculate that PcG proteins balance HSC aging against the risk of developing cancer, since a disturbance in PcG genes and proteins affects several important cellular processes such as cell fate decisions, senescence, apoptosis, and DNA damage repair.