Browsing by Author "Premkumar, Vidhya"

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    The ENL YEATS epigenetic reader domain critically links MLL-ENL to leukemic stem cell frequency in t(11;19) Leukemia
    (Springer Nature, 2023) Hu, Hsiangyu; Saha, Nirmalya; Yang, Yuting; Ahmad, Ejaz; Lachowski, Lauren; Shrestha, Uttar; Premkumar, Vidhya; Ropa, James; Chen, Lili; Teahan, Blaine; Grigsby, Sierrah; Marschalek, Rolf; Nikolovska-Coleska, Zaneta; Muntean, Andrew G.; Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine
    MLL (KMT2a) translocations are found in ~10% of acute leukemia patients, giving rise to oncogenic MLL-fusion proteins. A common MLL translocation partner is ENL and associated with a poor prognosis in t(11;19) patients. ENL contains a highly conserved N-terminal YEATS domain that binds acetylated histones and interacts with the PAF1c, an epigenetic regulator protein complex essential for MLL-fusion leukemogenesis. Recently, wild-type ENL, and specifically the YEATS domain, was shown to be essential for leukemic cell growth. However, the inclusion and importance of the YEATS domain in MLL-ENL-mediated leukemogenesis remains unexplored. We found the YEATS domain is retained in 84.1% of MLL-ENL patients and crucial for MLL-ENL-mediated leukemogenesis in mouse models. Mechanistically, deletion of the YEATS domain impaired MLL-ENL fusion protein binding and decreased expression of pro-leukemic genes like Eya1 and Meis1. Point mutations that disrupt YEATS domain binding to acetylated histones decreased stem cell frequency and increased MLL-ENL-mediated leukemia latency. Therapeutically, YEATS containing MLL-ENL leukemic cells display increased sensitivity to the YEATS inhibitor SGC-iMLLT compared to control AML cells. Our results demonstrate that the YEATS domain is important for MLL-ENL fusion protein-mediated leukemogenesis and exposes an "Achilles heel" that may be therapeutically targeted for treating t(11;19) patients.