BioProject

Broad domains of H3K4 methylation have been associated with tissue specific, cell identity and tumor suppressor genes. More...

Broad domains of H3K4 methylation have been associated with tissue specific, cell identity and tumor suppressor genes. Here, we identified broad H3K4me3 domains (BH4D)-associated genes in human thymic T cell populations and a collection of T-Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL) primary samples and cell lines. We found that BH4D are highly dynamic throughout T cell differentiation, flag key leukemia associated oncogenes and distinguish between normal and neoplastic cells. Leukemic cells loss broad domains at T cell identity genes and gain broad domains at cancer-related genes. Moreover, the expression of genes, both coding and non-coding, associated with BH4D is frequently deregulated in T-ALL. Using an ex-vivo model we demonstrated that the ectopic expression of TLX3 oncogenic factor preferentially impact on the expression of BH4D-associated genes in T cell leukemia. Finally, an H3K4me3 demethylase inhibitor differentially targets T-ALL cell lines depending on the extend of the broad domains. Our results show that regulation of BH4D-associated genes is critical for leukemogenesis and suggest that association with BH4D might be used as epigenetic prioritization of cancer-relevant genes, including long non-coding RNAs Overall design: ChIP-seq of H3K4me3 from human T acute lymphoblastic blasts and cell lines Less...