Investigating the interplay between the Iroquois homeoprotein family and MLL or derivatives thereof

The Iroquois 1 gene has been identified as top 1 upregulated gene in t(4;11) leukemia patients that display a transcriptional downregulation of HOXA genes, a phenomenon that was correlated with an even worser outcome (Trentin et al., 2009; Stam et al., 2010.). Here we present first data about Iroquois 1 and 2, both influencing the transcriptional properties of key players assumed to be important for the leukemogenic process in MLL-rearranged leukemia cell. From our data we can conclude that Iroquois proteins seem to counteract the molecular actions deriving from the MLL-AF4 protein. This work is supported by the…