NCOA3, a new fusion partner for MOZ/MYST3 in M5 acute myeloid leukemia

The recurrent translocation t(8;16)(p11;p13) is found in about 6.5% of acute myeloid leukemias (AMLs) of the M4/M5-FAB subtypes. These poor prognosis AMLs are associated with erythrophagocytosis by blast cells. The translocation results in the fusion of the MYST3 gene (also known as MOZ) on chromosome region 8p11 to the CREBBP gene (also known as CBP) on chromosome region 16p13.1, 2, 3 In the same type of AML, the t(10;16)(q22;p13) fuses MYST3-homolog MYST4 to CREBBP4 and the t(8;22)(p11;q13) fuses MYST3 to CREBBP-homolog EP300.5 MYST3, MYST4, CREBBP and EP300 encode transcriptional regulators and acetyltransferases. MYST3 is also fused to NCOA2 in the inv(8)(p11q13).6, 7 NCOA1/SRC1, NCOA2/TIF2 and NCOA3 are paralogous genes encoding transcription coactivators of the p160 family.8 Some rearrangements involving NCOA genes and MYST3 or MYST4 genes have not been reported yet, but have been suspected or predicted on the basis of homology relations.4 We report here a new type of translocation, t(8;20)(p11;q13), which occurs in an M5-AML and fuses MYST3 to NCOA3.