IRF4 is a suppressor of c-Myc induced B cell leukemia.

Simanta Pathak, Shibin Ma, Long Trinh, James Eudy, Kay-Uwe Wagner, Shantaram S Joshi, Runqing Lu

Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Anatomy, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.

PloS one 2011

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Interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) is a critical transcriptional regulator in B cell development and function. We have previously shown that IRF4, together with IRF8, orchestrates pre-B cell development by limiting pre-B cell expansion and by promoting pre-B cell differentiation. Here, we report that IRF4 suppresses c-Myc induced leukemia in EμMyc mice. Our results show that c-Myc induced leukemia was greatly accelerated in the IRF4 heterozygous mice (IRF4(+/-)Myc); the average age of mortality in the IRF4(+/-)Myc mice was only 7 to 8 weeks but was 20 weeks in the control mice. Our results show that IRF4(+/-)Myc leukemic cells were derived from large pre-B cells and were hyperproliferative and resistant to apoptosis. Further analysis revealed that the majority of IRF4(+/-)Myc leukemic cells inactivated the wild-type IRF4 allele and contained defects in Arf-p53 tumo r suppressor pathway. p27(kip) is part of the molecular circuitry that controls pre-B cell expansion. Our results show that expression of p27(kip) was lost in the IRF4(+/-)Myc leukemic cells and reconstitution of IRF4 expression in those cells induced p27(kip) and inhibited their expansion. Thus, IRF4 functions as a classical tumor suppressor to inhibit c-Myc induced B cell leukemia in EμMyc mice.

Citation

Simanta Pathak, Shibin Ma, Long Trinh, James Eudy, Kay-Uwe Wagner, Shantaram S Joshi, Runqing Lu. IRF4 is a suppressor of c-Myc induced B cell leukemia. PloS one. 2011;6(7):e22628