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Role of the non-canonical Wnt regulator Wnt5a in normal and malignant hematopoiesis

Subject Area Hematology, Oncology
Term from 2009 to 2019
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 122838057
 
Final Report Year 2020

Final Report Abstract

HSC reside in specialized niches maintaining their activity for the lifetime of an individual. It is still poorly understood how the niche regulates HSC. In this project, we defined niche factors affecting HSC and investigated through which mechanisms these factors regulate normal and malignant hematopoiesis. We found that deletion of Sfrp1, Sfrp2, or Wnt5a expression in the niche strongly affected the response of HSC to different forms of stress (in vitro culture, in vivo treatments with 5FU, irradiation, or in transplantation assays). Deletion mutants of these separate molecules showed varying degrees of HSC attrition in a non-redundant manner. In primary transplants into Sfrp2-/- mice, increased engraftment was noted with upregulation of canonical Wnt signaling. However, in subsequent transplantation, HSC were progressively lost with associated reduction of canonical Wnt signals. In heterozygous deletion mutants of the non-canonical Wnt mediator Wnt5a no changes in engraftment were noted. But, HSC regenerated in the Wnt5a+/- environment showed failure to engraft in subsequent recipients. As in the HSC regenerated in Wnt5a mutants, the mechanisms of HSC reduction or failure was not clear, we performed transcriptome analyses of regenerated HSC. These analyses showed a clearly deregulated transcriptome, particularly in actin-dependent processes. Validation studies in HSC isolated from Wnt5a+/- recipients, 16 weeks post transplantation, showed no changes in canonical Wnt signaling, but confirmed deregulation of non-canonical Wnt mediators in the actin-regulatory pathway. Importantly, these changes lead to reduced adhesion, migration, and homing activity of HSC regenerated in Wnt5a+/- recipients. Equally interestingly, regenerated donor cells from Wnt5a+/- recipients showed activation of CDC42, suggesting that HSC attrition in these recipients shows similarities with loss of HSC in normal aging. Preliminary studies in conditional mutants show that when either Sfrp1 or Wnt5a are deleted in the context of Sp7/Osterix-expressing cells (OS1D/D and O5AD/D, respectively), HSC show defective repopulation behavior, even without prior transplantation. Furthermore, in experiments designed to determine whether whether Sfrp1 or Wnta expression contribute to leukemogenesis, we found that deletion of niche Sfrp1 in OS1D/D mice is a contributing factor in BCR-ABL1+ leukemia. In contrast, leukemogenesis in Wnt5a+/- recipients was reduced. Thus, whereas in normal hematopoiesis Sfrp1, Sfrp2, and Wnt5a all contribute similarly to HSC maintenance, in leukemogenesis, Sfrp1 acts as a tumor suppressor, whereas Wnt5a expression promotes development of BCR-ABL1+ leukemia, at least in part through maintaining correct actin assembly in malignant cells. These results suggest that the balance between canonical and non-canonical Wnt signaling is differentially regulated in normal and malignant hematopoiesis.

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