ASXL1 Directs Neutrophilic Differentiation via Modulation of MYC and RNA Polymerase II.
Mutations in the gene Additional Sex-Combs Like 1 (ASXL1) are recurrent in myeloid malignancies as well as the pre-malignant condition clonal hematopoiesis, where they are universally associated with poor prognosis. An epigenetic regulator, ASXL1 ca-nonically directs the deposition of H3K27me3 via the polycomb repressive complex 2. However, its precise role in myeloid lineage maturation is incompletely described. We utilized single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) on a murine model of hematopoietic-specific ASXL1 deletion and identified a specific role for ASXL1 in terminal granulo-cyte maturation. Terminal maturation is accompanied by down regulation of Myc ex-pression and cell cycle exit. ASXL1 deletion leads to hyperactivation of Myc in granu-locyte precursors and a quantitative decrease in neutrophil production. This failure of normal developmentally-associated Myc suppression is not accompanied by signifi-cant changes in the landscape of covalent histone modifications including H3K27me3. Examining the genome-wide localization of ASXL1 in myeloid progenitors revealed strong co-localization with RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) at the promoters and spread across the gene bodies of transcriptionally active genes. ASXL1 deletion results in a decrease in RNAPII promoter-proximal pausing in granulocyte progenitors, indicative of a global increase in productive transcription, consistent with the known role of ASXL1 as a mediator of RNAPII pause release. These results suggest that ASXL1 in-hibits productive transcription in granulocyte progenitors, identifying a new role for this epigenetic regulator and highlighting a novel potential oncogenic mechanism for ASXL1 mutations in myeloid malignancies.