One such dynamic Nup, called Nup98, has been implicated in gene activation in healthy cells and has been shown to drive leukemogenesis when mutated in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Two isoforms of NSD3, NSD3S and NSD3L (but not NSD3L2), were expressed in leukemic cell lines and were fused to NUP98 in our patient, suggesting that qualitative change of these two isoforms of NSD3 by fusion with NUP98 might be related to leukemogenesis, although the function of each isoform of the NSD3 gene remains unclear.
The derived fusion protein retains the FG repeat motif of NUP98 N-terminus and the homeodomain shared by the HOX genes, acting as an oncogenic transcription factor critical for leukemogenesis.
Herein, we took advantage of the strong transforming potential of NUP98-HOXD13 or NUP98-HOXA10 to establish preleukemic myeloid lines from bone marrow cells that faithfully replicate the first step of Hox-induced leukemogenesis.
This region is always retained in the fusion transcript with the NH(2) terminus FG repeats of NUP98, suggesting an important role in the mechanism of leukemogenesis.
The protein encoded by the NUP98-HOXA13 fusion gene is similar to that encoded by NUP98-HOXA9, and the expression pattern of the HOXA13 gene in leukemic cell lines is similar to that of the HOXA9 gene, suggesting that the NUP98-HOXA13 fusion protein may play a role in leukemogenesis through a mechanism similar to that of the NUP98-HOXA9 fusion protein.
It has been demonstrated that the chromosomal translocation t(7;11)(p15;p15) in patients with human acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) invariably involves fusion of the nucleoporin gene, NUP98, on chromosome 11 and the class 1 HOX gene, HOXA9, on chromosome 7, and that the fusion gene NUP98-HOXA9 is an important gene in myeloid leukemogenesis.
We supposed that the fusion gene created by t(5;11)(q31;p15) consisting of the NUP98 and its partner gene, as well as the loss of the EGR1 gene, may play a cooperative role in leukemogenesis.
Taken together, our data indicate that newly identified NUP98-IQCG fusion protein may play an essential role in leukemogenesis, but by itself may not be sufficient to induce leukemia.
Recent studies using mouse models expressing NUP98-HOX have confirmed its leukemogenic potential, and cooperative genes for NUP98-HOXA9 in leukemogenesis have been identified in these studies.Thus, the NUP98 chimera is a unique molecule that provides valuable information regarding nuclear pore function and the role of the homeobox protein in leukemogenesis/carcinogenesis.
We demonstrate that NUP98-HOXA9 interacts with mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) via this FG repeat domain and that, in the absence of MLL, NUP98-HOXA9-induced cell immortalization and leukemogenesis are severely inhibited.
Our results revealed that t(2;11)(q31;p15) was not a single chromosomal abnormality and that the NUP98-HOXD fusion genes encode similar fusion proteins, which suggests that the NUP98-HOXD11 as well as NUP98-HOXD13 fusion protein play a role in leukemogenesis through similar mechanisms.
To gain insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the leukemogenesis of NUP98-HOX fusion products, we cloned NUP98-PMX1 from a CML-blast crisis patient with t(1;11) as a secondary chromosomal translocation, and functionally studied the fusion products in detail through various molecular and protein biochemical assays.