This week we profile a recent publication in Leukemia from the lab of Dr. Arefeh Rouhi (pictured) at BC Cancer.
Can you provide a brief overview of your lab’s current research focus?
Our current focus is on understanding how deregulated gene expression leads to malignancy and treatment resistance in acute myeloid leukemia and multiple myeloma.
What is the significance of the findings in this publication?
In this manuscript, we are looking at the transcriptional regulation of the human Myeloid ecotropic virus insertion site 1 (MEIS1), an essential gene for normal hematopoiesis, that is often dysregulated in acute leukemias. We characterize an important regulatory element for MEIS1 and identify a transcription factor, FLI1, as a key regulator.
We have also published a short summary and commentary on our recent work in Nature Portfolio Cancer Community.
What are the next steps for this research?
FLI1 belongs to the ETS family of transcription factors that are also deregulated in leukemia. We have previously shown that a number of these factors control MEIS1 transcription. Therefore, we want to further explore the transcriptional network and the feedback loops between MEIS1 and ETS factors.
If you’d like to mention your funding sources, please list them.
This work was a highly collaborative effort between multiple groups at the Terry Fox Laboratory and Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre. As such, there are many funding sources to thank for supporting our work, including the Terry Fox Foundation Program Project Grant, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Genome British Columbia and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.
