Figure 3

A link between HOX activation and the LMO2 +1 enhancer in leukaemia cells. (a) Normalized gene expression data for 72 T-ALL patients having one of the major molecular cytogenetic abnormalities (TAL1, LMO2, HOXA, HOX11 and HOX11L2) shown by heatmap and boxplot. Elevated levels of LMO2 are seen in both the LMO2 and HOXA categories. Corresponding P-values are shown. (b) HOXA5 can transactivate the LMO2 +1 enhancer. Transient co-transfection assays in 293T cells show significant activation of the wild-type enhancer construct (pP/Luc/+1) but not the mutant enhancer with either first three or all HOX sites mutated (pP/Luc/+1HOX1-3mut and pP/Luc/+1HOX1-6mut, respectively). Values are expressed relative to the control pcDNA3, and the mean and s.e.m. for at least two independent transfections (each one performed in triplicate) are shown. (c) Normalized gene expression data for human CD34⁺ cells, obtained from cord blood, transformed with the leukaemia fusion genes MLL-AF9 (n=9) or AML1-ETO (n=6) shown by boxplot. Greater levels of LMO2 can be observed in the MLL-AF9 category. Corresponding P-value is shown.