MicroRNA (miRNA)–mediated gene regulation is of critical functional importance in animals and is thought to be largely constrained during evolution. However, little is known regarding evolutionary changes of the miRNA network and their role in human evolution. Here we show that a number of miRNA binding sites display high levels of population differentiation in humans and thus are likely targets of local adaptation. In a subset we demonstrate that allelic differences modulate miRNA regulation in mammalian cells, including an interaction between miR-155 and TYRP1 , an important melanosomal enzyme associated with human pigmentary differences. We identify alternate alleles of TYRP1 that induce or disrupt miR-155 regulation and demonstrate that these alleles are selected with different modes among human populations, causing a strong negative correlation between the frequency of miR-155 regulation of TYRP1 in human populations and their latitude of residence. We propose that local adaptation of microRNA regulation acts as a rheostat to optimize TYRP1 expression in response to differential UV radiation. Our findings illustrate the evolutionary plasticity of the microRNA regulatory network in recent human evolution.

Summary The doubling time (DT) of the BCR–ABL1 quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) transcript level reflects the re‐growing fraction of leukaemic cells after discontinuation of tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). The present study analyzed monthly DT within six months after imatinib discontinuation in 131 patients. Monthly DT was calculated as x = ln(2)/K, where x is the DT and K is the fold BCR–ABL1 change from the previous value divided by the number of days between each measurement. The optimal DT value was determined as 12·75 days at two months using a recursive partitioning method. The patients were stratified into three groups: the high‐risk group (DT<12·75 days but >0, with rapidly proliferating chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) cells; n = 26) showed the lowest molecular relapse‐free survival (mRFS) of 7·7% at 12 months, compared to 53·6% in the intermediate‐risk group (DT≥12·75 days, with slowly proliferating CML cells; n = 16) or 90·0% in the low‐risk group (DT≤0, i.e., without proliferating CML cells; n = 71; P < 0·001). Monthly assessment of DT helps identify high‐risk patients for treatment‐free remission failure with an imminent risk of molecular recurrence, and to define low‐risk patients who can be spared the frequent monitoring of monthly molecular tests.

A 17-gene stemness (LSC17) score determines risk in acute myeloid leukaemia patients treated with standard chemotherapy regimens. The present study further analysed the impact of the LSC17 score at diagnosis on outcomes following allogeneic haematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Out of 452 patients with available LSC17 score, 123 patients received allogeneic HCT. Transplant outcomes, including overall (OS), leukaemia-free survival (LFS), relapse incidence (RI) and non-relapse mortality (NRM), were compared according to the LSC17 scored group. The patients with a low LSC17 score had higher OS (56.2%) and LFS (54.4%) at 2 years compared to patients

BACKGROUND: Tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) resistance is the most relevant event during the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), which correlates with high risk of treatment failure, disease progression and death, explaining half of treatment failed CML patients. However, the remaining half with TKI resistance does not show any ABL1 tyrosine kinase domain (TKD) mutation indicating the presence of alternative pathogenic pathways behind TKI resistance. Thus we hypothesized that the novel mutation besides ABL1-TKD mutation occurs during the development of TKI resistance. Using whole exome sequencing, we screened 13 pairs of CML cases with TKI resistance, but without ABL1-TKD mutation. The present study attempts to: 1) explore novel mutation(s) developing TKI resistance to CML treatment and 2) validate the somatic variants in an independent cohort of CML patients (n=100). METHODS: Thirteen CML cases with TKI resistance but not having ABL1 TKD mutation were included prospectively. Reason for TKI resistance includes Loss of MCyR (n=7) with (n=2) or without additional cytogenetic abnormality (ACA; n=5), progression to blastic crisis (n=3), development of ACA (n=1), development of clonal evolution in Ph neg clone (n=1), primary cytogenetic resistance (n=1). TKI resistance were demonstrated to imatinib (n=12), dasatinib (n=5), nilotinib (n=4) or ponatinib (n=2). The latest treatment includes ponatinib (n=3), dasatinib (n=8) alone (n=4), with smoothen inhibitor (n=2), or with after systemic chemotherapy (n=2), omacetaxine (n=1), and nilotinib (n=1). Disease stage at the time of exome sequencing was chronic phase (n=10) or blastic crisis (n=3). Germline and tumor samples at the time of TKI resistance were compared using whole exome sequencing (Illumina TruSeq kit, HiSeq 2000). Targeted sequencing for selected variants was performed to validate the result. All patients were confirmed the absence of ABL1-TKD mutations using Sanger sequencing. RESULTS: 1) Exome sequencing (Illumina Truseq kit) was performed as per the manufacturer's protocol using an Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencer. DNA from buccal mucosa was used as a control for variant calling. Exome sequencing reads processing includes mapping to human genome hg19, marking PCR duplicates, realignment of indels, fixing mate information, and discard the reads with more than 2 mismatches to increase the true positive rate. In the end, we have on-target-coverage of 57x. Lastly, 72% of target positions are mapped more than 30x. 2) One hundred nineteen somatic variants were identified in 13 patients in 108 genes. Among them 5 genes have variants in multiple patients including DNMT3A (n=3), ASXL1 (n=2), NPIPB5 (n=2), ATXN3 (n=2) and EFEMP1 (n=2) . We also found at least 1 mutation in well-known driver genes in 6 patients (6/13 = 46%). 3) Three out of 4 patients with ACA carry variants at least one of DNMT3A (n=2), ASXL1 (n=2), and SETBP1 (n=1). Also, 2 out of 3 cases progressed to blastic crisis demonstrate variants in DNMT3A (n=1) and IDH1 (n=1). 4) Interestingly, in one patient, exome sequencing reveals ABL1-TKD mutation (T315I), which was not detected at the initial screening by Sanger sequencing. 5) The result of targeted sequencing in an independent cohort of CML patients (n=100) will be presented in the annual meeting of American Society of Hematology in Dec 2015. CONCLUSION: Our study suggest that DNMT3A and ASXL1 mutations seem to be the driver mutations involved in the development of TKI resistance/progression, independent of ABL1-TKD mutation. Also, exome sequencing can detect ABL1-TKD mutations including T315I prior to be detected by initial Sanger sequencing. Disclosures Lipton: Ariad: Consultancy, Research Funding; Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Research Funding; Pfizer: Consultancy, Research Funding; Teva: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Research Funding. Kim:Bristol-Myers Squibb: Consultancy, Research Funding; Novartis Pharmaceuticals: Consultancy, Research Funding.

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