Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
We showed that Emicro-MiR-155 transgenic mice develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia/high-grade lymphoma. Most of these leukemias start at approximately 9 months irrespective of the mouse strain. They are preceded by a polyclonal pre-B-cell proliferation, have variable clinical presentation, are transplantable, and develop oligo/monoclonal expansion. In this study, we show that in these transgenic mice the B-cell precursors have the highest MiR-155 transgene expression and are at the origin of the leukemias. We determine that Src homology 2 domain-containing inositol-5-phosphatase (SHIP) and CCAAT enhancer-binding protein beta (C/EBPbeta), 2 important regulators of the interleukin-6 signaling pathway, are direct targets of MiR-155 and become gradually more down-regulated in the leukemic than in the preleukemic mice. We hypothesize that miR-155, by down-modulating Ship and C/EBPbeta, initiates a chain of events that leads to the accumulation of large pre-B cells and acute lymphoblastic leukemia/high-grade lymphoma.