http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/15681/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/29115/ 2008-04-29T00:00:00Z Although Hox gene expression has been linked to motoneuron identity, a role of these genes in development of the spinal sensory system remained undocumented. Hoxb genes are expressed at high levels in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. Hoxb8 null mutants manifest a striking phenotype of excessive grooming and hairless lesions on the lower back. Applying local anesthesia underneath the hairless skin suppressed excessive grooming, indicating that this behavior depends on peripheral nerve activity. Functional ablation of mouse Hoxb8 also leads to attenuated response to nociceptive and thermal stimuli. Although spinal ganglia were normal, a lower postmitotic neural count was found in the dorsalmost laminae at lumbar levels around birth, leading to a smaller dorsal horn and a correspondingly narrowed projection field of nociceptive and thermoceptive afferents. The distribution of the dorsal neuronal cell types that we assayed, including neurons expressing the itch-specific gastrin-releasing peptide receptor, was disorganized in the lumbar region of the mutant. BrdU labeling experiments and gene-expression studies at stages around the birth of these neurons suggest that loss of Hoxb8 starts impairing development of the upper laminae of the lumbar spinal cord at approximately embryonic day (E)15.5. Because none of the neuronal markers used was unexpressed in the adult dorsal horn, absence of Hoxb8 does not impair neuronal differentiation. The data therefore suggest that a lower number of neurons in the upper spinal laminae and neuronal disorganization in the dorsal horn underlie the sensory defects including the excessive grooming of the Hoxb8 mutant. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/35196/ 2007-09-30T00:00:00Z Ecotropic Virus Integration site 12 (Evi12) is a common virus insertion site (cVIS) in retrovirally induced murine models of leukemia and lymphoma, suggesting an important role for this locus in these hematopoietic disorders. Evi12 is located near the promoter of the ER chaperone protein and Hsp90 family member Grp94. Here we show that viral insertion in Evi12 results in the expression of aberrant Grp94 transcripts in Cas-Br-MuLV as well as in AKXD induced hematopoietic tumors, demonstrating that Grp94 is a common viral target gene. While most transcripts encode for truncated forms of Grp94, transcripts containing viral gag sequences were detected in the leukemia cell line NFS107. Interestingly, these fusion transcripts encode for myristylated viral-Grp94 fusion proteins that localize to the plasma membrane. Combined with recent evidence that myristylated forms of Hsp90 transform cells, our data suggest that myristylation of target genes may be an important mechanism in retrovirally mediated oncogenesis. Since retroviral insertion in Evi12 also affects the expression of a recently identified novel gene Grp94 neighboring nucleotidase (Gnn), located at the other side of Evi12, it appears that proviral insertion can lead to deregulation of two genes present in the same locus. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/13774/ 2005-05-01T00:00:00Z The leukemia and lymphoma disease locus Evi12 was mapped to the noncoding region of a novel gene, Gnn (named for Grp94 neighboring nucleotidase), that is located immediately upstream of the Grp94/Tra1 gene on mouse chromosome 10. The Gnn gene is conserved in mice and humans. Expression of fusion constructs between GFP and Gnn cDNA isoforms in HEK-293 cells showed that Gnn proteins are located mainly in the cytoplasm. Immunoblotting experiments demonstrated the presence of multiple Gnn protein isoforms in most organs, with the lowest levels of expression of the protein detected in bone marrow and spleen. The Evi12-containing leukemia cell line NFS107 showed high levels of expression of a approximately 150-kDa Gnn isoform (Gnn107) that was not observed in control cell lines. Overexpression may be due to the viral insertion in Evi12. The Gnn107 protein is probably encoded by a Gnn cDNA isoform that is expressed exclusively in NFS107 cells and that includes sequences of TU12B1-TY, a putative protein with homology to 5'-nucleotidase enzymes. Interestingly, using Affymetrix gene expression data of a cohort of 285 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), we found that GNN/TU12B1-TY expression was specifically increased in two AML clusters. One cluster consisted of all AML patients with a t(8;21) translocation, and the second cluster consisted of AML patients with a normal karyotype carrying a FLT3 internal tandem duplication. These findings suggest that we identified a novel proto-oncogene that may be causally linked to certain types of human leukemia.