Dysregulation of the Transforming Growth Factor β Pathway in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Generated from Patients with Diamond Blackfan Anemia

Diamond Blackfan Anemia (DBA) is an inherited bone marrow failure syndrome with clinical features of red cell aplasia and variable developmental abnormalities. Most affected patients have heterozygous loss of function mutations in ribosomal protein genes but the pathogenic mechanism is still unknown. We generated induced pluripotent stem cells from DBA patients carrying RPS19 or RPL5 mutations. Transcriptome analysis revealed the striking dysregulation of the transforming growth factor β (TGFβ) signaling pathway in DBA lines. Expression of TGFβ target genes, such as TGFBI, BAMBI, COL3A1 and SERPINE1 was significantly increased in the DBA iPSCs. We quantified intermediates in canonical and non-canonical TGFβ pathways and observed a significant increase in the levels of the non-canonical pathway mediator p-JNK in the DBA iPSCs. Moreover, when the mutant cells were corrected by ectopic expression of WT RPS19 or RPL5, levels of p-JNK returned to normal. Surprisingly, nuclear levels of SMAD4, a mediator of canonical TGFβ signaling, were decreased in DBA cells due to increased proteolytic turnover. We also observed the up-regulation of TGFβ1R, TGFβ2, CDKN1A and SERPINE1 mRNA, and the significant decrease of GATA1 mRNA in the primitive multilineage progenitors. In summary our observations identify for the first time a dysregulation of the TGFβ pathway in the pathobiology of DBA.