The finding that the Mef2c gene was induced also by both ND13 and NA10, but did not correlate with Hox or Hox co-factor expression in human AML samples indicate that this gene, plus the prion protein, Prnp, gene could be novel direct targets of these NUP98-Hox fusions and not normally effected by native HOXA5, HOXA7, HOXA9 or MEIS1 genes. Here, HOXA5 is linked to acute myeloid leukemia.