RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 DNA Methylation in ATRA-treated Leukemia Cell Lines Lacking a PML–RAR Chromosome Translocation
JF Anticancer Research
JO Anticancer Res
FD International Institute of Anticancer Research
SP 4715
OP 4722
VO 32
IS 11
A1 MIFTAKHOVA, REGINA
A1 SANDBERG, TOVE
A1 HEDBLOM, ANDREAS
A1 NEVZOROVA, TATYANA
A1 PERSSON, JENNY L.
A1 BREDBERG, ANDERS
YR 2012
UL http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/32/11/4715.abstract
AB A deficient retinoic acid signaling has been suggested to be an important cause of the clinical inefficacy of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) therapy in non-promyelocytic (non-PML) forms of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The general aim of the present work was to explore novel ways to take advantage of the anti-leukemic potential of ATRA, and, specifically, to search for a synergism between ATRA and epigenetic drugs. Because previous reports have found no major influence of ATRA on DNA methylation, we investigated whether ATRA-mediated differentiation of the U937 and HL-60 AML cell lines, both lacking a PML–retinoic acid receptor (RAR) fusion product, is accompanied by early-appearing and weak changes in CpG methylation. We report that in HL-60 cells, by using a highly quantitative analysis of a set of genes found to be abnormally expressed in AML, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-amplified p16 gene promoter molecules (each with 15 CpG sites), exhibited a CpG methylation level of 0-4% in untreated cells, which increased to 4-21% after treatment with ATRA for seven days. In contrast to HL-60 cells, U937 cells exhibited a very high CpG methylation level in p16, and ATRA did not influence the promoter methylation of this gene. In the total CCGG sites of the genome, analysed using a methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme, CpG methylation was significantly lower in ATRA-treated HL-60 (p<0.01) and U937 cells (p<0.05) than in controls. Taken together, our findings show that ATRA can influence DNA methylation, and suggest that future research should investigate whether epigenetic modulation may evoke a clinical effect of ATRA in leukemia.