Cancer-associated ASXL1 mutations may act as gain-of-function mutations of the ASXL1-BAP1 complex

ASXL1 is the obligate regulatory subunit of a deubiquitinase complex whose catalytic subunit is BAP1. Heterozygous mutations of ASXL1 that result in premature truncations are frequent in myeloid leukemias and Bohring-Opitz syndrome. Here, we demonstrate that truncated ASXL1 proteins confer enhanced activity on the ASXL1-BAP1 complex. Stable expression of truncated, hyperactive ASXL1-BAP1 complexes in a hematopoietic precursor cell line resulted in global erasure of H2AK119Ub, striking depletion of H3K27me3, selective upregulation of a subset of genes whose promoters bore both H2AK119Ub and H3K4me3, and spontaneous differentiation to the mast cell lineage. These outcomes required the catalytic activity of BAP1, indicating these events were downstream consequences of H2AK119Ub erasure. In bone marrow precursors, truncated ASXL1-BAP1 expression cooperated with TET2 loss-of-function to increase differentiation to the myeloid lineage in vivo. We propose that pathological ASXL1 mutations confer gain-of-function on the ASXL-BAP1 complex. ChIP-Seq for H2AK119Ub, H3K4me3, H3K27me3 on EML cells. RNA-Seq on EML cells expressing ASXL1(1-479)+BAP1 and control.