Dnmt3a haploinsufficiency cooperates with oncogenic Kras to promote an early-onset T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Mutations in DNA methyltransferase 3A (DNMT3A) are prevalent in various myeloid and lymphoid malignancies. The most common DNMT3A R882 mutations inhibit methyltransferase activity of the remaining wild-type DNMT3A proteins at a heterozygous state due to their dominant-negative activity. Reports and COSMIC database analysis reveal significantly different frequencies of R882 mutations in myeloid versus T-cell malignancies, inspiring us to investigate whether downregulation of DNMT3A regulates malignancies of different lineages in a dose-dependent manner. In a competitive transplant setting, the survival of recipients with Kras(G12D/+) ; Dnmt3a(+/-) bone marrow (BM) cells was significantly shortened than that of recipients with Kras(G12D/+) cells. Moreover, all of the recipients with Kras(G12D/+) ; Dnmt3a(+/-) cells developed a lethal T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) without significant myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) phenotypes, while ~20% of recipients with Kras(G12D/+) cells developed MPN with or without T-ALL. This is in sharp contrast to the recipients with Kras(G12D/+) ; Dnmt3a(-/-) cells, in which ~60% developed a lethal myeloid malignancy (MPN or acute myeloid leukemia [AML]). Our data suggest that in the context of oncogenic Kras, loss of Dnmt3a promotes myeloid malignancies, while Dnmt3a haploinsufficiency induces T-ALL. This dose-dependent phenotype is highly consistent with the prevalence of DNMT3A R882 mutations in AML versus T-ALL in human.