TY - JOUR AU - Diana Schotte, AU - Ellen A.M. Lange-Turenhout, AU - Dominique J.P.M. Stumpel, AU - Ronald W. Stam, AU - Jessica G.C.A.M. Buijs-Gladdines, AU - Jules P.P. Meijerink, AU - Rob Pieters, AU - Monique L. Den Boer, PY - 2010/09/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Expression of miR-196b is not exclusively MLL-driven but is especially linked to activation of HOXA genes in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia JF - Haematologica JA - haematol VL - 95 IS - 10 SE - Articles DO - 10.3324/haematol.2010.023481 UR - https://haematologica.org/article/view/5751 SP - 1675-1682 AB - Background Deregulation of microRNA may contribute to hematopoietic malignancies. MicroRNA-196b (miR-196b) is highly expressed in MLL-rearranged leukemia and has been shown to be activated by MLL and MLL-fusion genes.Design and Methods In order to determine whether high expression of miR-196b is restricted to MLL-rearranged leukemia, we used quantitative stem-loop reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction to measure the expression of this microRNA in 72 selected cases of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia i.e. MLL-rearranged and non-MLL-rearranged precursor B-cell and T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias. We also determined the expression of HOXA-genes flanking miR-196 by microarray and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Furthermore, we used CpG island-arrays to explore the DNA methylation status of miR-196b and HOXA.Results We demonstrated that high expression of miR-196b is not unique to MLL-rearranged acute lymphoblastic leukemia but also occurs in patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients carrying CALM-AF10, SET-NUP214 and inversion of chromosome 7. Like MLL-rearrangements, these abnormalities have been functionally linked with up-regulation of HOXA. In correspondence, miR-196b expression in these patients correlated strongly with the levels of HOXA family genes (Spearman’s correlation coefficient ≥ 0.7; P≤0.005). Since miR-196b is encoded on the HOXA cluster, these data suggest co-activation of miR-196b and HOXA genes in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Up-regulation of miR-196b coincides with reduced DNA methylation at CpG islands in the promoter regions of miR-196b and the entire HOXA cluster in MLL-rearranged cases compared to in cases of non-MLL precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and normal bone marrow (P