Investigating the functional interplay of IRX1 and IRX2 homeoprotein family members and MLL fusion proteins

The Iroquois 1 (IRX1) gene has been identified as a candidate gene that is strongly upregulated in t(4;11) leukemia patients which display a transcriptional downregulation of HOXA genes, a phenomenon that was associated even with a worse outcome (Trentin et al., 2009; Stam et al., 2010.). Here we present our cummulated data about Iroquois 1 and 2, both influencing the transcriptional properties of different key players assumed to be important for the leukemogenic process in MLL-rearranged leukemia cell. From our data we conclude that Iroquois proteins does not only counteract the molecular actions deriving from…