The AF10 leucine zipper is required for leukemic transformation of myeloid progenitors by MLL-AF10

Abstract

The t(10;11)(p12;q23) chromosomal translocation in human acute myeloid leukemia results in the fusion of theMLL and AF10 genes. The latter codes for a novel leucine zipper protein, one of many MLL fusion partners of unknown function. In this report, we demonstrate that retroviral-mediated transduction of an MLL-AF10complementary DNA into primary murine myeloid progenitors enhanced their clonogenic potential in serial replating assays and led to their efficient immortalization at a primitive stage of myeloid differentiation. Furthermore, MLL-AF10–transduced cells rapidly induced acute myeloid leukemia in syngeneic or severe combined immunodeficiency recipient mice. Structure/function analysis showed that a highly conserved 82–amino acid portion of AF10, comprising 2 adjacent α-helical domains, was sufficient for immortalizing activity when fused to MLL. Neither helical domain alone mediated immortalization, and deletion of the 29–amino acid leucine zipper within this region completely abrogated transforming activity. Similarly, the minimal oncogenic domain of AF10 exhibited transcriptional activation properties when fused to the MLL or GAL4 DNA-binding domains, while neither helical domain alone did. However, transcriptional activation per se was not sufficient because a second activation domain of AF10 was neither required nor competent for transformation. The requirement for α-helical transcriptional effector domains is similar to the oncogenic contributions of unrelated MLL partners ENL and ELL, suggesting a general mechanism of myeloid leukemogenesis by a subset of MLL fusion proteins, possibly through specific recruitment of the transcriptional machinery.