Fetal and neonatal hematopoietic progenitors are functionally and transcriptionally resistant to Flt3-ITD mutations

The FLT3 Internal Tandem Duplication (FLT3(ITD)) mutation is common in adult acute myeloid leukemia (AML) but rare in early childhood AML. It is not clear why this difference occurs. Here we show that Flt3(ITD) and cooperating Flt3(ITD)/Runx1 mutations cause hematopoietic stem cell depletion and myeloid progenitor expansion during adult but not fetal stages of murine development. In adult progenitors, FLT3(ITD) simultaneously induces self-renewal and myeloid commitment programs via STAT5-dependent and STAT5-independent mechanisms, respectively. While FLT3(ITD) can activate STAT5 signal transduction prior to birth, this signaling does not alter gene expression until hematopoietic progenitors transition from fetal to adult transcriptional states. Cooperative interactions between Flt3(ITD) and Runx1 mutations are also blunted in fetal/neonatal progenitors. Fetal/neonatal progenitors may therefore be protected from leukemic transformation because they are not competent to express FLT3(ITD) target genes. Changes in the transcriptional states of developing hematopoietic progenitors may generally shape the mutation spectra of human leukemias. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.18882.001