Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

PLZF-RAR[alpha] fusion proteins generated from the variant t(11; 17)(q23; q21) translocation in acute promyelocytic leukemia inhibit ligand-dependent transactivation of wild-type retinoic acid receptors

Journal Article · · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; (United States)
; ;  [1]; ; ; ; ;  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Shanghai Second Medical Univ. (China)
  2. Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire Hematopoietique, Paris (France)
  3. Institute for Cancer Research, London (United Kingdom)
  4. Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY (United States)

Recently, the authors described a recurrent variant translocation, t(11;17)(q23;q21), in acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) which juxtaposes PLZF, a gene encoding a zinc finger protein, to RARA, encoding retinoic acid receptor [alpha] (RAR[alpha]). They have now cloned cDNAs encoding PLZF-RAR[alpha] chimeric proteins and studied their transactivating activities. In transient-expression assays, both the PLZF(A)-RAR[alpha] and PLZF(B)-RAR[alpha] fusion proteins like the PML-RAR[alpha] protein resulting from the well-known t(15;17) translocation in APL, antagonized endogenous and transfected wild-type RAR[alpha] in the presence of retinoic acid. Cotransfection assays showed that a significant repression of RAR[alpha] transactivation activity was obtained even with a very low PLZF-RAR[alpha]-expressing plasmid concentration. A [open quotes]dominant negative[close quotes] effect was observed with vectors expressing RAR[alpha] and retinoid X receptor [alpha] (RXR[alpha]). These abnormal transactivation properties observed in retinoic acid-sensitive myeloid cells strongly implicate the PLZF-RAR[alpha] fusion proteins in the molecular pathogenesis of APL.

OSTI ID:
7009364
Journal Information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; (United States), Journal Name: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; (United States) Vol. 91:3; ISSN PNASA6; ISSN 0027-8424
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English