MiR-150 Suppresses MLL-AF9 Associated Leukemia Through Simultaneously Targeting Multiple Oncogenes

This study report that miR-150, a key hematopoietic regulatory microRNA (miRNA) and one of the most downregulated miRNAs in MLL-associated leukemias, acts as a tumor suppressor to block the leukemogenic potency of leukemic stem cells. When expression of miR-150 was restored, a significantly suppressed leukemic stem cell potency of MLL-AF9 cells was observed both in vivo and in vitro. To investigate the tumor suppressive function of miR-150 in MLL-AF9 cells, we isolated three batches of MLL-AF9 cells infected with MDH empty vector or MDH-miR-150 expression retrovirus. Total RNA were extracted and applied for Agilent array analysis. Gene profiling analysis demonstrated that elevated miR-150 altered various aspects of gene expression patterns in MLL-AF9 cells, including stem cell signatures, cancer pathways, and cell survival. miR-150-MLL-AF9 and MDH-MLL-AF9 isolated cells were compared for gene expression patterns. Triplicates using three batches of FACS sorted cells were compared in pairs on the array. MDH-MLL-AF9 samples were labeld with Cy3 and miR-150-MLL-AF9 samples were labled with Cy5.