About 5% of cases of acute leukemia are diagnosed as mixed leukemia (MLL), which is common in infants. The cause is a gene called MLL, which produces a protein of the same name to promote new cell growth. In most cases, MLL is properly regulated by the body and does not cause disease. Unfortunately, in some cases, MLL incorrectly produces MLL fusion proteins.

Researchers from CSHL found that the MLL gene encoding the MLL fusion protein that causes a series of troubles is easily activated by ZFP64, a special protein.

ZFP64 is very common in healthy people, but no one has considered it to be a causative factor in any type of leukemia. Further testing showed that the production of the MLL fusion protein is completely dependent on this unique, unobtrusive protein.

The critical function of ZFP64 in leukemia is to maintain MLL expression via binding to the MLL promoter, which is the most enriched location of ZFP64 occupancy in the human genome. The specificity of ZFP64 for MLL is accounted for by an exceptional density of ZFP64 motifs embedded within the MLL promoter. These findings demonstrate how a sequence anomaly of an oncogene promoter can impose a transcriptional addiction in cancer.

"The ZFP64 deletion is a highly desirable drug target because it completely and specifically inhibits MLL fusion protein production and leukemia cascade growth," the investigators said.

EIAAB SCIENCE INC, WUHAN has developed ZFP64 protein, antibody and ELISA kit.