A novel gene, NSD1, is fused to NUP98 in the t(5;11)(q35;p15.5) in de novo childhood acute myeloid leukemia.
Jaju RJ., Fidler C., Haas OA., Strickson AJ., Watkins F., Clark K., Cross NC., Cheng JF., Aplan PD., Kearney L., Boultwood J., Wainscoat JS.
The recurrent translocation t(5;11)(q35;p15.5) associated with a 5q deletion, del(5q), has been reported in childhood acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We report the cloning of the translocation breakpoints in de novo childhood AML harboring a cryptic t(5;11)(q35;p15.5). Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis demonstrated that the nucleoporin gene (NUP98) at 11p15.5 was disrupted by this translocation. By using 3'--rapid amplification of complementary DNA ends (3'-RACE) polymerase chain reaction, we identified a chimeric messenger RNA that results in the in-frame fusion of NUP98 to a novel gene, NSD1. The NSD1 gene has 2596 amino acid residues and a 85% homology to the murine Nsd1 with the domain structure being conserved. The NSD1 gene was localized to 5q35 by FISH and is widely expressed. The reciprocal transcript, NSD1-NUP98, was also detected by reverse transcriptase--polymerase chain reaction. This is the first report in which the novel gene NSD1 has been implicated in human malignancy. (Blood. 2001;98:1264-1267)