Gain-of-Function NOTCH1 Mutations Occur Frequently in Human T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

NOTCH1 was discovered originally through its involvement in a rare (7;9) translocation found in human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). Here, we report that >50% of human T-ALLs have activating NOTCH1 mutations, occurring as amino acid substitutions in an extracellular heterodimerization (HD) domain and/or as frameshift and stop codon mutations that result in the deletion of a C-terminal PEST destruction box. Normal pro-NOTCH1 is processed into a heterodimer consisting of an extracellular subunit and a transmembrane subunit, which associate non-covalently through the HD domain. NOTCH1 activation is triggered by binding of Serrate or Delta-like ligands to the extracellular subunit, which induces successive proteolytic cleavages in the transmembrane subunit that are dependent on i) metalloproteases and ii) gamma-secretase. The γ-secretase cleavage releases intracellular NOTCH1 (ICN1), which translocates to the nucleus and forms a transcriptional activation complex with the transcription factor CSL and co-activators of the Mastermind family. Normal turnover of ICN1 is regulated by the C-terminal PEST sequence. Data pointing to the existence of frequent abnormalities of NOTCH1 in T-ALL stemmed from a functional screen of 30 T-ALL cell lines. This identified five T-ALL cell lines that underwent growth arrest in response to i) treatment with an inhibitor γ-secretase, and ii) retroviral transduction of dominant negative Mastermind-like-1. Sequencing of of cDNAs from 4 of these 5 cell lines demonstrated both a missense mutation in the HD domain and a frameshift mutation in the PEST domain lying in cis in the same NOTCH1 allele. Subsequent sequencing of genomic DNA obtained from bone marrow lymphoblasts of 96 children and adolescents with T-ALL demonstrated identical or similar mutations in NOTCH1 in 53 samples (55.2%). Mutations in the HD domain alone were observed in 26 cases (27.1%), in the PEST domain alone in 11 cases (11.4%), and in both the HD and PEST domains in 16 cases (16.7%). Mutations were observed in tumors associated with expression of HOX11 (2/3), HOX11L2 (10/13; 77%), TAL1 (12/31; 39%), LYL1 (9/14; 64%), MLL-ENL (1/3) or CALM-AF10 (1/2), which span the major molecular T-ALL subtypes. In contrast, NOTCH1 mutations were not observed in genomic DNAs samples obtained from B-ALL lymphoblasts (N=89), or from T-ALL patients with NOTCH1-associated disease at the time of clinical remission (N=4). Reporter gene assays conducted with plasmids expressing normal and mutated forms of NOTCH1 showed that a PEST deletion or various HD mutations alone caused ~1.5-fold and 3–9-fold stimulations of reporter gene activity, respectively, whereas normal NOTCH1 lacked intrinsic signaling activity. More strikingly, the combination of various HD mutations and a PEST deletion in cis caused synergistic 20–40-fold stimulations of reporter gene activity that were completely abrogated by a γ-secretase inhibitor, indicating that signaling depends on proteolysis. These results suggest a model in which HD domain mutations promote ICN1 production, and PEST domain mutations enhance ICN1 stability. Our findings greatly expand the role of NOTCH1 in the pathogenesis of human T-ALL, and provide a rationale for targeted therapies that interfere with NOTCH signaling.