Leukemia aggressiveness is driven by chromatin remodeling and expression changes of core regulators [RNA-seq]

We tracked and analyzed MLL-rearranged leukemic clones independently evolving towards higher aggressiveness. More aggressive subclones lost their growth differential ex vivo but restored it upon secondary transplantation, suggesting molecular memory of aggressiveness.

Development of aggressiveness was associated with clone-specific gradual modulation of chromatin states and expression levels across the genome, with a surprising preferential trend of reversing the earlier changes between normal and leukemic progenitors. To focus on the core aggressiveness program, we identified genes with consistent changes of expression and chromatin marks that were maintained in vivo and ex vivo in both clones.