MDS and acute myeloid leukemia patient samples harboring U2AF35(S34F) have a similar increased use of the ATG7 distal CP site, and previous studies have shown that mice with hematopoietic cells lacking Atg7 develop an MDS-like syndrome.
These data suggest that the S34F mutation alters U2AF1 function in the context of specific RNA sequences, leading to aberrant alternative splicing of target genes, some of which may be relevant for MDS pathogenesis.