Musashi 2 regulates normal hematopoiesis and accelerates leukemogenesis (Leukemia cell lines)

We demonstrate that Msi2 is the predominant form expressed in hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), and its knockdown leads to reduced engraftment and depletion of HSCs in vivo. Overexpression of Msi2 in a mouse model increases HSC cell cycle progression and cooperates with BCR-ABL1 to induce an aggressive leukemia. MSI2 is over-expressed in human myeloid leukemia, and expression levels directly correlate with decreased patient survival, thereby defining MSI2 expression as a novel prognostic marker in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Depletion of MSI2 in human myeloid leukemia cells leads to decreased proliferation and apoptosis. These data implicate the MSI2 RNA binding protein in myeloid leukemogenesis and identify a novel potential target for therapy in AML. We transduced four human leukemia cell lines with lentiviral shRNA vectors targeting MSI2. Hybridizations of treated and control samples from each cell line were dye swap replicated