Browsing by Author "Aguilera, Fabiola"

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    Hyperglycemia cooperates with Tet2 heterozygosity to induce leukemia driven by proinflammatory cytokine–induced lncRNA Morrbid
    (American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2021-01-04) Cai, Zhigang; Lu, Xiaoyu; Zhang, Chi; Nelanuthala, Sai; Aguilera, Fabiola; Hadley, Abigail; Ramdas, Baskar; Fang, Fang; Nephew, Kenneth; Kotzin, Jonathan J.; Williams, Adam; Henao-Mejia, Jorge; Haneline, Laura; Kapur, Reuben; Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
    Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a risk factor for cancer. The role of DM-induced hyperglycemic (HG) stress in blood cancer is poorly understood. Epidemiologic studies show that individuals with DM are more likely to have a higher rate of mutations in genes found in pre-leukemic hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (pre-LHSPCs) including TET2. TET2-mutant pre-LHSPCs require additional hits to evolve into full-blown leukemia and/or an aggressive myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN). Intrinsic mutations have been shown to cooperate with Tet2 to promote leukemic transformation. However, the extrinsic factors are poorly understood. Using a mouse model carrying Tet2 haploinsufficiency to mimic the human pre-LHSPC condition and HG stress, in the form of an Ins2Akita/+ mutation, which induces hyperglycemia and type 1 DM, we show that the compound mutant mice developed a lethal form of MPN and/or acute myeloid leukemia (AML). RNA-Seq revealed that this was due in part to upregulation of proinflammatory pathways, thereby generating a feed-forward loop, including expression of the antiapoptotic, long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) Morrbid. Loss of Morrbid in the compound mutants rescued the lethality and mitigated MPN/AML. We describe a mouse model for age-dependent MPN/AML and suggest that hyperglycemia acts as an environmental driver for myeloid neoplasms, which could be prevented by reducing expression levels of the inflammation-related lncRNA Morrbid.
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    Targeting Bim via a lncRNA Morrbid Regulates the Survival of Preleukemic and Leukemic Cells
    (Elsevier, 2020-06-23) Cai, Zhigang; Aguilera, Fabiola; Ramdas, Baskar; Daulatabad, Swapna Vidhur; Srivastava, Rajneesh; Kotzin, Jonathan J.; Carroll, Martin; Wertheim, Gerald; Williams, Adam; Janga, Sarath Chandra; Zhang, Chi; Henao-Mejia, Jorge; Kapur, Reuben; Pediatrics, School of Medicine
    Inhibition of anti-apoptotic proteins BCL-2 and MCL-1 to release pro-apoptotic protein BIM and reactivate cell death could potentially be an efficient strategy for the treatment of leukemia. Here, we show that a lncRNA, MORRBID, a selective transcriptional repressor of BIM, is overexpressed in human acute myeloid leukemia (AML), which is associated with poor overall survival. In both human and animal models, MORRBID hyperactivation correlates with two recurrent AML drivers, TET2 and FLT3ITD. Mice with individual mutations of Tet2 or Flt3ITD develop features of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) and myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), respectively, and combined presence results in AML. We observe increased levels of Morrbid in murine models of CMML, MPN, and AML. Functionally, loss of Morrbid in these models induces increased expression of Bim and cell death in immature and mature myeloid cells, which results in reduced infiltration of leukemic cells in tissues and prolongs the survival of AML mice.