Transcriptome of primary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells treated with AICAr

Ribonucleoside AICAr, a precursor in purine synthesis and a known activator of AMPK, was shown to induce monocytic differentiation in AML cell lines by inducing pyrimidine depletion followed by activation of ATR/Chk1 pathway and cell cycle arrest. Here we report transcriptional changes induced by AICAr in the primary AML sample (FAB-M2, FLT3 negative, NPM1 negative) in which AICAr induced differentiation and accumulation of macrophage cells in vitro. RNA-seq transcriptome analysis of primary AML cells isolated from the bone marrow of a patient with de novo FAB-M2 AML. Mononuclear cells were isolated from the bone marrow sample by density gradient separation and grown in RPMI supplemented with 10% FBS, 2?mM L-glutamine, 50?U/ml penicillin, 50?µg/ml streptomycin and 50 ng/ml IL-3, IL-6, SCF and FLT3L. Cells were treated with AICAr (0.4 mM) for 24 h. Experiment was performed in biological triplicates and total RNA was isolated for transcriptome analysis using Illumina high throughput sequencing.