Missense Mutations in Myc Box I Influence Nucleocytoplasmic Transport to Promote Leukemogenesis

Somatic missense mutations in the phosphodegron domain of the MYC gene (MYC Box I or MBI) are detected in the dominant clones of a subset of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), but the mechanisms by which they contribute to AML are unknown.

To investigate the effects of MBI MYC mutations on hematopoietic cells, we employed a multi-omic approach to systematically compare the cellular and molecular consequences of expressing oncogenic doses of wild type, threonine-58 and proline-59 mutant MYC proteins in hematopoietic cells, and we developed a knockin mouse harboring the germline MBI mutation p.T58N in the Myc gene.

Both wild-type and MBI mutant MYC proteins promote self-renewal programs and expand highly selected subpopulations of progenitor cells in the bone marrow. Compared with their wild-type counterparts, mutant cells display decreased cell death and accelerated leukemogenesis in vivo, changes that are recapitulated in the transcriptomes of human AML-bearing MYC mutations. The mutant phenotypes feature decreased stability and translation of mRNAs encoding proapoptotic and immune-regulatory genes, increased translation of RNA binding proteins and nuclear export machinery, and distinct nucleocytoplasmic RNA profiles. MBI MYC mutant proteins also show a higher propensity to aggregate in perinuclear regions and cytoplasm. Like the overexpression model, heterozygous p.T58N knockin mice displayed similar changes in subcellular MYC localization, progenitor expansion, transcriptional signatures, and develop hematopoietic tumors.

This study uncovers that MBI MYC mutations alter RNA nucleocytoplasmic transport mechanisms to contribute to the development of hematopoietic malignancies.