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  4. Notch1-driven T-ALL chromatin landscape is regulated by Tcf1 in hematopoietic progenitors
 
doctoral thesis

Notch1-driven T-ALL chromatin landscape is regulated by Tcf1 in hematopoietic progenitors

Antoszewski, Mateusz Waldemar  
2021

Notch1 receptor signaling is essential for T cell fate specification and physiological thymic T lymphocyte development. Its dysregulation and oncogenic activation are detected in almost 80% of pediatric patients suffering from T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). T-ALL is a hematological neoplasm arising from immature thymocytes. T cell factor 1 (Tcf1) is a crucial well-known transcription factor regulating the early stages of thymocyte maturation and Notch1 directly drives the expression of Tcf1 during normal T cell development. Here we assessed the role of Tcf1 in modulating chromatin topology which enables the initiation of T-ALL at the level of early hematopoietic progenitors. This allows for the discovery of stage-setting epigenetic regulators establishing a leukemia-prone chromatin landscape during Notch1-driven disease initiation. We found Tcf1 to be an essential mediator of Notch1 signaling during T-ALL induction. Inactivation of Tcf1 prevented leukemogenesis despite oncogenic Notch1 activation. Genomic analysis of hematopoietic progenitors revealed T cell lineage specification to be essential in T-ALL initiation prior to the appearance of phenotypic features of T cells. The expression of genes associated with the T cell lineage was dependent on Notch1 and Tcf1. Chromatin accessibility, chromosome conformation capture and ChIP-seq analysis revealed the co-regulatory epigenetic function of Notch1 and Tcf1 in imprinting a leukemic chromatin landscape. Epigenetic modulation of distal enhancers which regulate leukemic oncogenes has been well described in patient-derived T-ALL cells. The Notch1-Myc enhancer region was shown to be indispensable in the process of leukemogenesis. We have identified a novel regulatory locus, dependent on Tcf1 and Notch1, essential for the expression of Myc in pre-T-ALL cells. This genomic region termed Tcf1-regulated Myc enhancer (TMe) was highly conserved across species. TMe was essential for the transition of pre-leukemic cells to a transplantable full-blown T-ALL but was dispensable for the physiological development of T cells. After activation of the enhancer in hematopoietic progenitors, this regulatory site remained accessible and bound by Tcf1 in murine and human T-ALL cells. Tcf1 is therefore required for shaping the epigenetic landscape of hematopoietic progenitors overexpressing oncogenic Notch1, and thus regulates the expression of genes involved in leukemogenesis.

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Type
doctoral thesis
DOI
10.5075/epfl-thesis-8020
Author(s)
Antoszewski, Mateusz Waldemar  
Advisors
Radtke, Freddy  
•
Koch, Ute  
Jury

Prof. Elisa Oricchio (présidente) ; Prof. Freddy Radtke, Dr Ute Koch (directeurs) ; Prof. Bart Deplancke, Dr. Elisa Laurenti, Dr. Jules Meijerink (rapporteurs)

Date Issued

2021

Publisher

EPFL

Publisher place

Lausanne

Public defense year

2021-10-21

Thesis number

8020

Total of pages

136

Subjects

T-ALL

•

Notch1

•

Tcf1

•

Myc

•

HSC

•

epigenetic

•

initiation

•

chromatin

•

enhancer

•

TMe

EPFL units
UPRAD  
Faculty
SV  
School
ISREC  
Doctoral School
EDMS  
Available on Infoscience
October 11, 2021
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/182102
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