Genome Editing of the Bcl11A Erythroid Specific Enhancer in Bone Marrow Derived Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells for the Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease

Ablation of Bcl11A could be a viable approach for the treatment of β-hemoglobinopathies such as β-thalassemia and sickle cell disease (SCD), since patients with Bcl11A haploinsufficiency have persistently high levels of fetal hemoglobin (HbF) (up to 30%), which are associated with development of minimal to no disease symptoms.  Genome editing by engineered zinc-finger nucleases that target either the exon 2 (exon ZFN) or the GATA motif of the erythroid specific enhancer (enhancer ZFN) of Bcl11A has been shown to increase HbF level in erythroid progeny from mobilized peripheral hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (PB-CD34+ HSPCs).  However, peripheral mobilization of CD34+ cells is associated with high risk and currently is not an option for SCD patients.  Therefore, we investigated the efficacy of genome editing of Bcl11A in bone marrow derived CD34+ cells (BM-CD34+ HSPCs).

We first established a clinically compatible large-scale process to isolate CD34+ HSPCs from human bone marrow aspirates and to transiently express the ZFN protein by mRNA electroporation.  The CD34+ isolation process resulted in ~ 95% pure CD34+ cells with greater than 90% viability.  Both the exon and the enhancer ZFN drove 50-60% Bcl11A gene editing, resulting in a robust elevation of HbF in the erythroid progeny. Notably, the BM-CD34+ HSPCs were found to contain a small population (10 to 25%) of CD34+CD19+ pro-B cells that were refractory to ZFN transfection under our current electroporation condition.  Since CD34+CD19+ pro-B cells are not expected to contribute to reconstituting the hematopoietic system other than B-cell lineage, the Bcl11A editing efficiency in the multipotent BM-CD34+ HSPC could be even higher.

The engraftment abilities of Bcl11A edited BM-CD34+ cells were then investigated in an immunodeficient NOD/scid/gamma (NSG) mouse model.  At a dose of 1 million cells per mouse, treatment with either the exon ZFN or the enhancer ZFN did not detectably impact engraftment or multi-lineage reconstitution compared with untreated cells.  However, Bcl11A marking in engrafted human cells was found to be markedly higher in the mice treated by the enhancer ZFN than that by the exon ZFN.   The exon ZFN resulted in a strong bias towards in-frame mutations across multi-lineages with the strongest effect observed in the B-cell lineage, suggesting that a threshold level of Bcl11A is required for efficient hematopoietic reconstitution and that cells fully lacking it due to disruption of the coding sequence are at a disadvantage.  In contrast, the enhancer ZFN resulted in comparable Bcl11A marking across all lineages with no apparent selection for cells with a functional GATA sequence.  Collectively, these data indicate that genome editing of the erythroid specific enhancer of Bcl11A in BM-CD34+ promotes HbF reactivation in the erythroid progeny while maintaining the engraftment and multi-lineage repopulating activities of edited BM-CD34+ HSPCs, which supports further clinical development of this approach for the treatment of SCD.