Characterizing the contrasting roles of JMJD3 and UTX histone demethylases in T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia [UTXKO_RNA-seq]

T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is an immature hematopoietic malignancy driven mainly by oncogenic activation of NOTCH1 signaling. In this study we conduct expression analysis in NOTCH1-IC-induced tumors in Utx wild-type (Utx+/+ or Utx+/Y) and knockout (Utx-/Y) background. These results, coupled to genomic analysis of primary samples for the genomic status of the UTX gene in T-ALL, helped us to characterize the hitherto understudied role of Utx as an oncogenic facilitator in leukemia and the contrasting expression signatures between JMJD3 and UTX in this disease. Whole RNA was extracted from 1-5 million primary cells from Notch1-IC-expressing (sorted populations of) mouse T-ALL tumors using the RNAeasy kit (Qiagen) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Poly-A+ (magnetic oligodT-containing beads (Invitrogen)) or Ribominus RNA was used for library preparation. cDNA preparation and strand-specific library construction was performed using the dUTP method. Libraries were sequenced on the Illumina HiSeq 2000 using 50bp single-read method. Differential gene expression analysis was performed between knockout vs wild-type background samples. Analysis was performed using DEGseq package leading to very similar conclusions.