PTPRJ Drives Clonal Selection in CEBPA mutated AML

Transcription factor CEBPA is mutated in 10-15% of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML), a haematopoietic malignancy with high mortality. CEBPA mutations show a distinct pattern, and most patients are biallelic, carrying both an in frame C-terminal mutation and a frameshift N-terminal mutation on opposing alleles. Rare N-terminal germline cases have 100% penetrance to AML, all with an acquired a C-terminal mutation. This suggests a selective pressure from one CEBPA mutation to develop another. Our zebrafish models faithfully recapitulate the human disease. All biallelic mutant combinations die by 4-6 weeks of age, with pre-leukaemic haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) expansion. C-terminal and N-terminal mutants show phenotypic differences in myeloid primed HSC and differences in the myeloid differentiation block. RNA-Seq identified differentially expressed genes in opposing vectors. We identified phosphatase receptor PTPRJ as a candidate driver of clonal selection, with knock-out of ptprja in our fish accelerating pre leukaemic expansion of HSC in C-terminal mutants, decelerating it in N-terminal mutants. Cebpa mutant murine cells exhibit changes in differentiation and a clonal advantage with loss of Ptprj, which perturbs key signalling pathways. Our data suggest that PTPRJ contributes to the mechanism of leukaemogenesis in CEBPA mutant AML by driving the selective pressure from each mutation to develop the other.