T-ALL and thymocytes: a message of noncoding RNAs

Abstract

In the last decade, the role for noncoding RNAs in disease was clearly established, starting with microRNAs and later expanded towards long noncoding RNAs. This was also the case for T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is a malignant blood disorder arising from oncogenic events during normal T cell development in the thymus. By studying the transcriptomic profile of protein-coding genes, several oncogenic events leading to T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) could be identified. In recent years, it became apparent that several of these oncogenes function via microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs. In this review, we give a detailed overview of the studies that describe the noncoding RNAome in T-ALL oncogenesis and normal T cell development.

Keywords: LncRNA; MicroRNA; T-ALL; Thymocytes.

Fig. 1

Overview of the noncoding RNAs implicated in T-ALL. miRNAs (blue text) and lncRNAs (green text) studied in T-ALL oncogenesis. The mRNAs linked to the ncRNAs are annotated in the filled circles. Bona fide oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in T-ALL are annotated in respectively red and blue background. Dashed lines represent indirect interactions. miRNAs of the miR-17~92 cluster are highlighted with a red circle

Fig. 2

MicroRNAs involved in T cell development in the thymus. Immature T cells migrate from the bone marrow to the thymus where they go through several stages of differentiation (early T cell prognitors (ETP), double negative T cells (DN), double positive T cells (DP) and single positive T cells (SP)), which are marked by different membrane receptors (CD34, CD1a, CD4, CD8, TCR, etc). Mature T cells leave the thymus as either CD4+ or CD8+ αβ T cells or γδ T cells and perform several functions in the immune defense of the body. MicroRNAs play a role during this process, with proven function for the miR-17~92 cluster and miR-181a