Transient Differentiation-State Plasticity Occurs During Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Initiation.

Leukemia is characterized by oncogenic lesions that result in a block of differentiation while phenotypic plasticity is retained. A better understanding of how these two phenomena arise during leukemogenesis in humans could help inform diagnosis and treatment strategies. Here, we leveraged the well-defined differentiation states during T-cell development to pinpoint the initiation of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), an aggressive form of childhood leukemia, and study the emergence of phenotypic plasticity. Single-cell whole genome sequencing of leukemic blasts was combined with multiparameter flow cytometry to couple cell identity and clonal lineages. Irrespective of genetic events, leukemia-initiating cells altered their phenotypes by differentiation and de-differentiation. Construction of phylogenies of individual leukemias using somatic mutations revealed that phenotypic diversity is reflected by the clonal structure of the cancer. The analysis also indicated that the acquired phenotypes are heritable and stable. Together, these results demonstrate a transient period of plasticity during leukemia initiation where phenotypic switches appear unidirectional.

Elevated enhancer-oncogene contacts and higher oncogene expression levels by recurrent CTCF inactivating mutations in acute T cell leukemia.

Monoallelic inactivation of CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) in human cancer drives altered methylated genomic states, altered CTCF occupancy at promoter and enhancer regions, and deregulated global gene expression. In patients with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), we find that acquired monoallelic CTCF-inactivating events drive subtle and local genomic effects in nearly half of t(5; 14) (q35; q32.2) rearranged patients, especially when CTCF-binding sites are preserved in between the BCL11B enhancer and the TLX3 oncogene. These solitary intervening sites insulate TLX3 from the enhancer by inducing competitive looping to multiple binding sites near the TLX3 promoter. Reduced CTCF levels or deletion of the intervening CTCF site abrogates enhancer insulation by weakening competitive looping while favoring TLX3 promoter to BCL11B enhancer looping, which elevates oncogene expression levels and leukemia burden.

STAT5 does not drive steroid resistance in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia despite the activation of BCL2 and BCLXL following glucocorticoid treatment.

Physiological and pathogenic interleukin-7-receptor (IL7R)-induced signaling provokes glucocorticoid resistance in a subset of patients with pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Activation of downstream STAT5 has been suggested to cause steroid resistance through upregulation of anti-apoptotic BCL2, one of its downstream target genes. Here we demonstrate that isolated STAT5 signaling in various T-ALL cell models is insufficient to raise cellular steroid resistance despite upregulation of BCL2 and BCL-XL. Upregulation of anti-apoptotic BCL2 and BCLXL in STAT5-activated T-ALL cells requires steroid-induced activation of NR3C1. For the BCLXL locus, this is facilitated by a concerted action of NR3C1 and activated STAT5 molecules at two STAT5 regulatory sites, whereas for the BCL2 locus this is facilitated by binding of NR3C1 at a STAT5 binding motif. In contrast, STAT5 occupancy at glucocorticoid response elements does not affect the expression of NR3C1 target genes. Strong upregulation of BIM, a NR3C1 pro-apoptotic target gene, upon prednisolone treatment can counterbalance NR3C1/STAT5-induced BCL2 and BCL-XL expression downstream of IL7- induced or pathogenic IL7R signaling. This explains why isolated STAT5 activation does not directly impair the steroid response. Our study suggests that STAT5 activation only contributes to steroid resistance in combination with cellular defects or alternative signaling routes that disable the pro-apoptotic and steroid-induced BIM response.

MAPK-ERK is a central pathway in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia that drives steroid resistance.

(Patho-)physiological activation of the IL7-receptor (IL7R) signaling contributes to steroid resistance in pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Here, we show that activating IL7R pathway mutations and physiological IL7R signaling activate MAPK-ERK signaling, which provokes steroid resistance by phosphorylation of BIM. By mass spectrometry, we demonstrate that phosphorylated BIM is impaired in binding to BCL2, BCLXL and MCL1, shifting the apoptotic balance toward survival. Treatment with MEK inhibitors abolishes this inactivating phosphorylation of BIM and restores its interaction with anti-apoptotic BCL2-protein family members. Importantly, the MEK inhibitor selumetinib synergizes with steroids in both IL7-dependent and IL7-independent steroid resistant pediatric T-ALL PDX samples. Despite the anti-MAPK-ERK activity of ruxolitinib in IL7-induced signaling and JAK1 mutant cells, ruxolitinib only synergizes with steroid treatment in IL7-dependent steroid resistant PDX samples but not in IL7-independent steroid resistant PDX samples. Our study highlights the central role for MAPK-ERK signaling in steroid resistance in T-ALL patients, and demonstrates the broader application of MEK inhibitors over ruxolitinib to resensitize steroid-resistant T-ALL cells. These findings strongly support the enrollment of T-ALL patients in the current phase I/II SeluDex trial (NCT03705507) and contributes to the optimization and stratification of newly designed T-ALL treatment regimens.

Recurrent NR3C1 Aberrations at First Diagnosis Relate to Steroid Resistance in Pediatric T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patients.

The glucocorticoid receptor NR3C1 is essential for steroid-induced apoptosis, and deletions of this gene have been recurrently identified at disease relapse for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. Here, we demonstrate that recurrent NR3C1 inactivating aberrations-including deletions, missense, and nonsense mutations-are identified in 7% of pediatric T-cell ALL patients at diagnosis. These aberrations are frequently present in early thymic progenitor-ALL patients and relate to steroid resistance. Functional modeling of NR3C1 aberrations in pre-B ALL and T-cell ALL cell lines demonstrate that aberrations decreasing NR3C1 expression are important contributors to steroid resistance at disease diagnosis. Relative NR3C1 messenger RNA expression in primary diagnostic patient samples, however, does not correlate with steroid response.

IL-7 Receptor Mutations and Steroid Resistance in Pediatric T cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Genome Sequencing Study.

BACKGROUND: Pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in children. T cell ALL (T-ALL) represents about 15% of pediatric ALL cases and is considered a high-risk disease. T-ALL is often associated with resistance to treatment, including steroids, which are currently the cornerstone for treating ALL; moreover, initial steroid response strongly predicts survival and cure. However, the cellular mechanisms underlying steroid resistance in T-ALL patients are poorly understood. In this study, we combined various genomic datasets in order to identify candidate genetic mechanisms underlying steroid resistance in children undergoing T-ALL treatment. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We performed whole genome sequencing on paired pre-treatment (diagnostic) and post-treatment (remission) samples from 13 patients, and targeted exome sequencing of pre-treatment samples from 69 additional T-ALL patients. We then integrated mutation data with copy number data for 151 mutated genes, and this integrated dataset was tested for associations of mutations with clinical outcomes and in vitro drug response. Our analysis revealed that mutations in JAK1 and KRAS, two genes encoding components of the interleukin 7 receptor (IL7R) signaling pathway, were associated with steroid resistance and poor outcome. We then sequenced JAK1, KRAS, and other genes in this pathway, including IL7R, JAK3, NF1, NRAS, and AKT, in these 69 T-ALL patients and a further 77 T-ALL patients. We identified mutations in 32% (47/146) of patients, the majority of whom had a specific T-ALL subtype (early thymic progenitor ALL or TLX). Based on the outcomes of these patients and their prednisolone responsiveness measured in vitro, we then confirmed that these mutations were associated with both steroid resistance and poor outcome. To explore how these mutations in IL7R signaling pathway genes cause steroid resistance and subsequent poor outcome, we expressed wild-type and mutant IL7R signaling molecules in two steroid-sensitive T-ALL cell lines (SUPT1 and P12 Ichikawa cells) using inducible lentiviral expression constructs. We found that expressing mutant IL7R, JAK1, or NRAS, or wild-type NRAS or AKT, specifically induced steroid resistance without affecting sensitivity to vincristine or L-asparaginase. In contrast, wild-type IL7R, JAK1, and JAK3, as well as mutant JAK3 and mutant AKT, had no effect. We then performed a functional study to examine the mechanisms underlying steroid resistance and found that, rather than changing the steroid receptor's ability to activate downstream targets, steroid resistance was associated with strong activation of MEK-ERK and AKT, downstream components of the IL7R signaling pathway, thereby inducing a robust antiapoptotic response by upregulating MCL1 and BCLXL expression. Both the MEK-ERK and AKT pathways also inactivate BIM, an essential molecule for steroid-induced cell death, and inhibit GSK3B, an important regulator of proapoptotic BIM. Importantly, treating our cell lines with IL7R signaling inhibitors restored steroid sensitivity. To address clinical relevance, we treated primary T-ALL cells obtained from 11 patients with steroids either alone or in combination with IL7R signaling inhibitors; we found that including a MEK, AKT, mTOR, or dual PI3K/mTOR inhibitor strongly increased steroid-induced cell death. Therefore, combining these inhibitors with steroid treatment may enhance steroid sensitivity in patients with ALL. The main limitation of our study was the modest cohort size, owing to the very low incidence of T-ALL. CONCLUSIONS: Using an unbiased sequencing approach, we found that specific mutations in IL7R signaling molecules underlie steroid resistance in T-ALL. Future prospective clinical studies should test the ability of inhibitors of MEK, AKT, mTOR, or PI3K/mTOR to restore or enhance steroid sensitivity and improve clinical outcome.

PTEN microdeletions in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia are caused by illegitimate RAG-mediated recombination events.

Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN)-inactivating mutations and/or deletions are an independent risk factor for relapse of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) patients treated on Dutch Childhood Oncology Group or German Cooperative Study Group for Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia protocols. Some monoallelic mutated or PTEN wild-type patients lack PTEN protein, implying that additional PTEN inactivation mechanisms exist. We show that PTEN is inactivated by small deletions affecting a few exons in 8% of pediatric T-ALL patients. These microdeletions were clonal in 3% and subclonal in 5% of patients. Conserved deletion breakpoints are flanked by cryptic recombination signal sequences (cRSSs) and frequently have non-template-derived nucleotides inserted in between breakpoints, pointing to an illegitimate RAG recombination-driven activity. Identified cRSSs drive RAG-dependent recombination in a reporter system as efficiently as bona fide RSSs that flank gene segments of the T-cell receptor locus. Remarkably, equivalent microdeletions were detected in thymocytes of healthy individuals. Microdeletions strongly associate with the TALLMO subtype characterized by TAL1 or LMO2 rearrangements. Primary and secondary xenotransplantation of TAL1-rearranged leukemia allowed development of leukemic subclones with newly acquired PTEN microdeletions. Ongoing RAG activity may therefore actively contribute to the acquisition of preleukemic hits, clonal diversification, and disease progression.

Immature MEF2C-dysregulated T-cell leukemia patients have an early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia gene signature and typically have non-rearranged T-cell receptors.

Three distinct immature T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia entities have been described including cases that express an early T-cell precursor immunophenotype or expression profile, immature MEF2C-dysregulated T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia cluster cases based on gene expression analysis (immature cluster) and cases that retain non-rearranged TRG@ loci. Early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases exclusively overlap with immature cluster samples based on the expression of early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia signature genes, indicating that both are featuring a single disease entity. Patients lacking TRG@ rearrangements represent only 40% of immature cluster cases, but no further evidence was found to suggest that cases with absence of bi-allelic TRG@ deletions reflect a distinct and even more immature disease entity. Immature cluster/early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases are strongly enriched for genes expressed in hematopoietic stem cells as well as genes expressed in normal early thymocyte progenitor or double negative-2A T-cell subsets. Identification of early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia cases solely by defined immunophenotypic criteria strongly underestimates the number of cases that have a corresponding gene signature. However, early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia samples correlate best with a CD1 negative, CD4 and CD8 double negative immunophenotype with expression of CD34 and/or myeloid markers CD13 or CD33. Unlike various other studies, immature cluster/early T-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients treated on the COALL-97 protocol did not have an overall inferior outcome, and demonstrated equal sensitivity levels to most conventional therapeutic drugs compared to other pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients.

The significance of PTEN and AKT aberrations in pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

BACKGROUND: PI3K/AKT pathway mutations are found in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but their overall impact and associations with other genetic aberrations is unknown. PTEN mutations have been proposed as secondary mutations that follow NOTCH1-activating mutations and cause cellular resistance to γ-secretase inhibitors. DESIGN AND METHODS: The impact of PTEN, PI3K and AKT aberrations was studied in a genetically well-characterized pediatric T-cell leukemia patient cohort (n=146) treated on DCOG or COALL protocols. RESULTS: PTEN and AKT E17K aberrations were detected in 13% and 2% of patients, respectively. Defective PTEN-splicing was identified in incidental cases. Patients without PTEN protein but lacking exon-, splice-, promoter mutations or promoter hypermethylation were present. PTEN/AKT mutations were especially abundant in TAL- or LMO-rearranged leukemia but nearly absent in TLX3-rearranged patients (P=0.03), the opposite to that observed for NOTCH1-activating mutations. Most PTEN/AKT mutant patients either lacked NOTCH1-activating mutations (P=0.006) or had weak NOTCH1-activating mutations (P=0.011), and consequently expressed low intracellular NOTCH1, cMYC and MUSASHI levels. T-cell leukemia patients without PTEN/AKT and NOTCH1-activating mutations fared well, with a cumulative incidence of relapse of only 8% versus 35% for PTEN/AKT and/or NOTCH1-activated patients (P=0.005). CONCLUSIONS: PI3K/AKT pathway aberrations are present in 18% of pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients. Absence of strong NOTCH1-activating mutations in these cases may explain cellular insensitivity to γ-secretase inhibitors.

Expression of miR-196b is not exclusively MLL-driven but is especially linked to activation of HOXA genes in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

BACKGROUND: Deregulation of microRNA may contribute to hematopoietic malignancies. MicroRNA-196b (miR-196b) is highly expressed in MLL-rearranged leukemia and has been shown to be activated by MLL and MLL-fusion genes. DESIGN AND METHODS: In order to determine whether high expression of miR-196b is restricted to MLL-rearranged leukemia, we used quantitative stem-loop reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction to measure the expression of this microRNA in 72 selected cases of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia i.e. MLL-rearranged and non-MLL-rearranged precursor B-cell and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias. We also determined the expression of HOXA-genes flanking miR-196 by microarray and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, we used CpG island-arrays to explore the DNA methylation status of miR-196b and HOXA. RESULTS: We demonstrated that high expression of miR-196b is not unique to MLL-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukemia but also occurs in patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients carrying CALM-AF10, SET-NUP214 and inversion of chromosome 7. Like MLL-rearrangements, these abnormalities have been functionally linked with up-regulation of HOXA. In correspondence, miR-196b expression in these patients correlated strongly with the levels of HOXA family genes (Spearman's correlation coefficient ≥ 0.7; P≤0.005). Since miR-196b is encoded on the HOXA cluster, these data suggest co-activation of miR-196b and HOXA genes in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Up-regulation of miR-196b coincides with reduced DNA methylation at CpG islands in the promoter regions of miR-196b and the entire HOXA cluster in MLL-rearranged cases compared to in cases of non-MLL precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and normal bone marrow (P<0.05), suggesting an epigenetic origin for miR-196b over-expression. Although patients with MLL-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukemia are highly resistant to prednisolone and L-asparaginase, this resistance was not attributed to miR-196b expression. CONCLUSIONS: High expression of miR-196b is not exclusively MLL-driven but can also be found in other types of leukemia with aberrant activation of HOXA genes. Since miR-196b has been shown by others to exert oncogenic activity in bone marrow progenitor cells, the findings of the present study imply a potential role for miR-196b in the underlying biology of all HOXA-activated leukemias.

A subtype of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with poor treatment outcome: a genome-wide classification study.

BACKGROUND: Genetic subtypes of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) are used to determine risk and treatment in children. 25% of precursor B-ALL cases are genetically unclassified and have intermediate prognosis. We aimed to use a genome-wide study to improve prognostic classification of ALL in children. METHODS: We constructed a classifier based on gene expression in 190 children with newly diagnosed ALL (German Cooperative ALL [COALL] discovery cohort) by use of double-loop cross-validation and validated this in an independent cohort of 107 newly diagnosed patients (Dutch Childhood Oncology Group [DCOG] independent validation cohort). Hierarchical cluster analysis with classifying gene-probe sets revealed a new ALL subtype, the underlying genetic abnormalities of which were characterised by comparative genomic hybridisation-arrays and molecular cytogenetics. FINDINGS: Our classifier predicted ALL subtype with a median accuracy of 90.0% (IQR 88.3-91.7) in the discovery cohort and correctly identified 94 of 107 patients (accuracy 87.9%) in the independent validation cohort. Without our classifier, 44 children in the COALL cohort and 33 children in the DCOG cohort would have been classified as B-other. However, hierarchical clustering showed that many of these genetically unclassified cases clustered with BCR-ABL1-positive cases: 30 (19%) of 154 children with precursor B-ALL in the COALL cohort and 14 (15%) of 92 children with precursor B-ALL in the DCOG cohort had this BCR-ABL1-like disease. In the COALL cohort, these patients had unfavourable outcome (5-year disease-free survival 59.5%, 95% CI 37.1-81.9) compared with patients with other precursor B-ALL (84.4%, 76.8-92.1%; p=0.012), a prognosis similar to that of patients with BCR-ABL1-positive ALL (51.9%, 23.1-80.6%). In the DCOG cohort, the prognosis of BCR-ABL1-like disease (57.1%, 31.2-83.1%) was worse than that of other precursor B-ALL (79.2%, 70.2-88.3%; p=0.026), and similar to that of BCR-ABL1-positive ALL (32.5%, 2.3-62.7%). 36 (82%) of the patients with BCR-ABL1-like disease had deletions in genes involved in B-cell development, including IKZF1, TCF3, EBF1, PAX5, and VPREB1; only nine (36%) of 25 patients with B-other ALL had deletions in these genes (p=0.0002). Compared with other precursor B-ALL cells, BCR-ABL1-like cells were 73 times more resistant to L-asparaginase (p=0.001) and 1.6 times more resistant to daunorubicin (p=0.017), but toxicity of prednisolone and vincristine did not differ. INTERPRETATION: New treatment strategies are needed to improve outcome for this newly identified high-risk subtype of ALL. FUNDING: Dutch Cancer Society, Sophia Foundation for Medical Research, Paediatric Oncology Foundation Rotterdam, Centre of Medical Systems Biology of the Netherlands Genomics Initiative/Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, American National Institute of Health, American National Cancer Institute, and American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities.