Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Language
English
Publication Date
11-28-2024
Journal
Blood
DOI
10.1182/blood.2024024300
PMID
39316719
Abstract
Oncogenes can be activated in cis through multiple mechanisms including enhancer hijacking events and noncoding mutations that create enhancers or promoters de novo. These paradigms have helped parse somatic variation of noncoding cancer genomes, thereby providing a rationale to identify noncanonical mechanisms of gene activation. Here we describe a novel mechanism of oncogene activation whereby focal copy number loss of an intronic element within the FTO gene leads to aberrant expression of IRX3, an oncogene in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Loss of this CTCF-bound element downstream to IRX3 (+224 kb) leads to enhancer hijack of an upstream developmentally active super-enhancer of the CRNDE long noncoding RNA (-644 kb). Unexpectedly, the CRNDE super-enhancer interacts with the IRX3 promoter with no transcriptional output until it is untethered from the FTO intronic site. We propose that "promoter tethering" of oncogenes to inert regions of the genome is a previously unappreciated biological mechanism preventing tumorigenesis.
Keywords
Humans, Precursor T-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma, Promoter Regions, Genetic, Homeodomain Proteins, Transcription Factors, Alpha-Ketoglutarate-Dependent Dioxygenase FTO, Oncogenes, Enhancer Elements, Genetic, Gene Expression Regulation, Leukemic, Sequence Deletion, RNA, Long Noncoding, Introns, CCCTC-Binding Factor
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Rahman, Sunniyat; Bloye, Gianna; Farah, Nadine; et al., "Focal Deletions of a Promoter Tether Activate the IRX3 Oncogene in T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia" (2024). Faculty, Staff and Student Publications. 6600.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/uthgsbs_docs/6600
Graphical Abstract
Included in
Bioinformatics Commons, Biomedical Informatics Commons, Genetic Phenomena Commons, Medical Genetics Commons, Oncology Commons