ZEB2 and LMO2 drive immature T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia via distinct oncogenic mechanisms.

ZEB1 and ZEB2 are structurally related E-box binding homeobox transcription factors that induce epithelial to mesenchymal transitions during development and disease. As such, they regulate cancer cell invasion, dissemination and metastasis of solid tumors. In addition, their expression is associated with the gain of cancer stem cell properties and resistance to therapy. Using conditional loss-of-function mice, we previously demonstrated that Zeb2 also plays pivotal roles in hematopoiesis, controlling important cell fate decisions, lineage commitment and fidelity. In addition, upon Zeb2 overexpression, mice spontaneously develop immature T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia. Here we show that pre-leukemic Zeb2-overexpressing thymocytes are characterized by a differentiation delay at beta-selection due to aberrant activation of the interleukin-7 receptor signaling pathway. Notably, and in contrast to Lmo2-overexpressing thymocytes, these pre-leukemic Zeb2-overexpressing T-cell progenitors display no acquired self-renewal properties. Finally, Zeb2 activation in more differentiated T-cell precursor cells can also drive malignant T-cell development, suggesting that the early T-cell differentiation delay is not essential for Zeb2-mediated leukemic transformation. Altogether, our data suggest that Zeb2 and Lmo2 drive malignant transformation of immature T-cell progenitors via distinct molecular mechanisms.

Myb overexpression synergizes with the loss of Pten and is a dependency factor and therapeutic target in T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia.

T-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an aggressive hematological malignancy that accounts for 10%-15% of pediatric and 25% of adult ALL cases. Although the prognosis of T-ALL has improved over time, the outcome of T-ALL patients with primary resistant or relapsed leukemia remains poor. Therefore, further progress in the treatment of T-ALL requires a better understanding of its biology and the development of more effective precision oncologic therapies. The proto-oncogene MYB is highly expressed in diverse hematologic malignancies, including T-ALLs with genomic aberrations that further potentiate its expression and activity. Previous studies have associated MYB with a malignant role in the pathogenesis of several cancers. However, its role in the induction and maintenance of T-ALL remains relatively poorly understood. In this study, we found that an increased copy number of MYB is associated with higher MYB expression levels, and might be associated with inferior event-free survival of pediatric T-ALL patients. Using our previously described conditional Myb overexpression mice, we generated two distinct MYB-driven T-ALL mouse models. We demonstrated that the overexpression of Myb synergizes with Pten deletion but not with the overexpression of Lmo2 to accelerate the development of T-cell lymphoblastic leukemias. We also showed that MYB is a dependency factor in T-ALL since RNA interference of Myb blocked cell cycle progression and induced apoptosis in both human and murine T-ALL cell lines. Finally, we provide preclinical evidence that targeting the transcriptional activity of MYB can be a useful therapeutic strategy for the treatment of T-ALL.

Pre-Clinical Evaluation of the Hypomethylating Agent Decitabine for the Treatment of T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.

T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LBL) is a rare and aggressive lymphatic cancer, often diagnosed at a young age. Patients are treated with intensive chemotherapy, potentially followed by a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Although prognosis of T-LBL has improved with intensified treatment protocols, they are associated with side effects and 10-20% of patients still die from relapsed or refractory disease. Given this, the search toward less toxic anti-lymphoma therapies is ongoing. Here, we targeted the recently described DNA hypermethylated profile in T-LBL with the DNA hypomethylating agent decitabine. We evaluated the anti-lymphoma properties and downstream effects of decitabine, using patient derived xenograft (PDX) models. Decitabine treatment resulted in prolonged lymphoma-free survival in all T-LBL PDX models, which was associated with downregulation of the oncogenic MYC pathway. However, some PDX models showed more benefit of decitabine treatment compared to others. In more sensitive models, differentially methylated CpG regions resulted in more differentially expressed genes in open chromatin regions. This resulted in stronger downregulation of cell cycle genes and upregulation of immune response activating transcripts. Finally, we suggest a gene signature for high decitabine sensitivity in T-LBL. Altogether, we here delivered pre-clinical proof of the potential use of decitabine as a new therapeutic agent in T-LBL.

Cyclin D2 overexpression drives B1a-derived MCL-like lymphoma in mice.

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive B cell lymphoma with poor long-term overall survival. Currently, MCL research and development of potential cures is hampered by the lack of good in vivo models. MCL is characterized by recurrent translocations of CCND1 or CCND2, resulting in overexpression of the cell cycle regulators cyclin D1 or D2, respectively. Here, we show, for the first time, that hematopoiesis-specific activation of cyclin D2 is sufficient to drive murine MCL-like lymphoma development. Furthermore, we demonstrate that cyclin D2 overexpression can synergize with loss of p53 to form aggressive and transplantable MCL-like lymphomas. Strikingly, cyclin D2-driven lymphomas display transcriptional, immunophenotypic, and functional similarities with B1a B cells. These MCL-like lymphomas have B1a-specific B cell receptors (BCRs), show elevated BCR and NF-κB pathway activation, and display increased MALT1 protease activity. Finally, we provide preclinical evidence that inhibition of MALT1 protease activity, which is essential for the development of early life-derived B1a cells, can be an effective therapeutic strategy to treat MCL.

Novel strategy for rapid functional in vivo validation of oncogenic drivers in haematological malignancies.

In cancer research, it remains challenging to functionally validate putative novel oncogenic drivers and to establish relevant preclinical models for evaluation of novel therapeutic strategies. Here, we describe an optimized and efficient pipeline for the generation of novel conditional overexpression mouse models in which putative oncogenes, along with an eGFP/Luciferase dual reporter, are expressed from the endogenous ROSA26 (R26) promoter. The efficiency of this approach was demonstrated by the generation and validation of novel R26 knock-in (KI) mice that allow conditional overexpression of Jarid2, Runx2, MN1 and a dominant negative allele of ETV6. As proof of concept, we confirm that MN1 overexpression in the hematopoietic lineage is sufficient to drive myeloid leukemia. In addition, we show that T-cell specific activation of MN1 in combination with loss of Pten increases tumour penetrance and stimulates the formation of Lyl1+ murine T-cell lymphoblastic leukemias or lymphomas (T-ALL/T-LBL). Finally, we demonstrate that these luciferase-positive murine AML and T-ALL/T-LBL cells are transplantable into immunocompromised mice allowing preclinical evaluation of novel anti-leukemic drugs in vivo.