Divergent effects of supraphysiologic Notch signals on leukemia stem cells and hematopoietic stem cells

MY Chiang, O Shestova, L Xu… - Blood, The Journal of …, 2013 - ashpublications.org
MY Chiang, O Shestova, L Xu, JC Aster, WS Pear
Blood, The Journal of the American Society of Hematology, 2013ashpublications.org
The leukemia stem cell (LSC) hypothesis proposes that a subset of cells in the bulk
leukemia population propagates the leukemia. We tested the LSC hypothesis in a mouse
model of Notch-induced T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) in which the tumor
cells were largely CD4+ CD8+ T cells. LSC activity was enriched but rare in the CD8+ CD4−
HSAhi immature single-positive T-cell subset. Although our murine T-ALL model relies on
transduction of HSCs, we were unable to isolate Notch-activated HSCs to test for LSC …
Abstract
The leukemia stem cell (LSC) hypothesis proposes that a subset of cells in the bulk leukemia population propagates the leukemia. We tested the LSC hypothesis in a mouse model of Notch-induced T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) in which the tumor cells were largely CD4+CD8+ T cells. LSC activity was enriched but rare in the CD8+CD4HSAhi immature single-positive T-cell subset. Although our murine T-ALL model relies on transduction of HSCs, we were unable to isolate Notch-activated HSCs to test for LSC activity. Further analysis showed that Notch activation in HSCs caused an initial expansion of hematopoietic and T-cell progenitors and loss of stem cell quiescence, which was followed by progressive loss of long-term HSCs and T-cell production over several weeks. Similar results were obtained in a conditional transgenic model in which Notch activation is induced in HSCs by Cre recombinase. We conclude that although supraphysiologic Notch signaling in HSCs promotes LSC activity in T-cell progenitors, it extinguishes self-renewal of LT-HSCs. These results provide further evidence for therapeutically targeting T-cell progenitors in T-ALL while also underscoring the need to tightly regulate Notch signaling to expand normal HSC populations for clinical applications.
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