Our findings suggest that Erg gene triplication contributes to the dysregulation of the homeostatic proportion of the populations of immune cells in the embryonic brain and decreased prenatal cortical neurogenesis in the prenatal brain with DS.
These data suggest a role for ERG as a regulator of hematopoietic lineage potential, and that trisomy of ERG in the context of DS foetal liver hemopoiesis drives the pre-leukemic changes that predispose to subsequent DS-TMD and DS-AMKL.
The Ets-related gene (ERG) located on human chromosome 21 encodes a transcription factor and is thought to be causally related to Down syndrome-associated acute megakaryocytic leukemia in childhood.
Aberrant protein expression of transcription factors BACH1 and ERG, both encoded on chromosome 21, in brains of patients with Down syndrome and Alzheimer's disease.
BACH1 was significantly overexpressed in fetal DS (p < 0.008) as compared to controls whereas RUNX1 and ERG proteins were comparable between groups, and SIM2 l was not detectable in any specimen.
In this region, we focused on a 1.6-Mb region between a NotI site, LA68 (D21S396, which is mapped distal to D21S17) and ERG, because analysis of a Japanese DS family with partial trisomy 21 revealed that the proximal border of its triplicated region was distal to LA68.