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Query: UMLS:C0023418 (leukemia)
 93,477 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

There is abundant evidence that leukemia arise through somatically acquired genetic changes. Familial or congenital predisposition is rarely involved. These genetic changes are often visible as chromosomal aberrations. Molecular analyses of the DNA sequences rearranged in leukemia has demonstrated the presence of cellular oncogenes which are modified (fused, mutated, truncated) by the specific translocations. This results in a disturbance of the delicate balance between proliferation and differentiation and constitute a major step towards cell transformation. Some of these genetic rearrangements have been analyzed in depth, but the exact defect that causes leukemia is often not yet understood. Meanwhile these studies have increased our knowledge of normal cell proliferation and differentiation and provided us with new tools for diagnosis and for developing more specifically targeted treatment. An example would be the production of antibodies that recognize specifically the new chimeric proteins. Oncogenesis is a complex and multiple step process that proceeds by acquisition of successive genetic insults. The different steps do not necessarily occurs following a predetermined order, although some secondary changes are preferentially induced by a given first mutation. In leukemia, sequential changes in karyotype are well documented but molecular makers for tumor progression have not yet been systematically investigated. This is one of our many challenges for the future.
Leukemia 1992 Nov
PMID:Cytogenetics and oncogenes. 143 20

Chimeric DNA expression vectors containing regulatory sequences proximal to the 5' end of coding sequences for mammalian genes provide valuable tools to study gene expression. Genes coding for easily measured products (reporter genes) can be used to study promoter strength and regulation of gene expression after transient expression of promoter-reporter constructs in mammalian cells. To determine the strength of a variety of mammalian and viral promoter-enhancer sequences in primary cultures of human mammary epithelial cells (HMEC), these sequences were fused to the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene and transfected into HMEC using strontium phosphate. The long terminal repeat (LTR) of the endogenous murine leukemia virus AKR-623 was the most potent promoter of transient CAT expression in HMEC. A number of commonly available promoter sequences displayed a wide range of activities in these cells. The glucocorticoid responsive LTR promoter from the murine mammary tumor virus modulated expression of CAT and was sensitive to the concentration of dexamethasone in the growth media. In a similar fashion, the regulatory sequences from the murine metallothionein-1 gene retained responsiveness to zinc concentration in the growth media.
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PMID:Relative promoter activity in human mammary epithelial cells assayed by transient expression. 148 64

Herbimycin A, a benzoquinoid ansamycin antibiotic, was demonstrated to decrease intracellular phosphorylation by protein tyrosine kinase (PTK). In Philadelphia chromosome (Ph1)-positive leukemias such as chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) and Ph1-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), both of which express bcr-abl fused gene products (P210bcr-abl or P190bcr-abl protein kinase) with augmented tyrosine kinase activities, herbimycin A markedly inhibited the in vitro growth of the Ph1-positive ALL cells and the leukemic cells derived from CML blast crisis. However, the same dose of herbimycin A did not inhibit in vitro growth of a broad spectrum of Ph1-negative human leukemia cells, and several other protein kinase antagonists also displayed no preferential inhibition. Furthermore, we demonstrated that herbimycin A has an antagonizing effect on the growth of transformed cells by a transfection of retroviral amphotrophic vector expressing P210bcr/abl into a murine interleukin (IL)-3-dependent myeloid FDC-P2 cell line. This inhibition was abrogated by the addition of sulfhydryl compounds, similar to the reaction previously described for Rous sarcoma virus transformation. The inhibitory effect of herbimycin A on the growth of Ph1-positive cells was associated with decreased bcr/abl tyrosine kinase activity, but no decrease of bcr-abl mRNA and protein, suggesting that the inactivation of bcr-abl tyrosine kinase activity by herbimycin A may be induced by its binding to the bcr-abl protein portion that is rich with sulfhydryl groups. The present study indicates that herbimycin A is a beneficial agent for the investigation of the role of the bcr-abl gene in Ph1-positive leukemias and further suggests that the development of agents inhibiting the bcr-abl gene product may offer a new therapeutic potential for Ph1-positive leukemias.
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PMID:Effect of herbimycin A, an antagonist of tyrosine kinase, on bcr/abl oncoprotein-associated cell proliferations: abrogative effect on the transformation of murine hematopoietic cells by transfection of a retroviral vector expressing oncoprotein P210bcr/abl and preferential inhibition on Ph1-positive leukemia cell growth. 151 46

Murine promonocytic leukemias involving insertional mutagenesis of the c-myb locus can be induced by replication-competent retroviruses. In previously studied promonocytic leukemic cells induced by Moloney murine leukemia virus (called MML), the provirus has been invariably integrated upstream of exons 3 or 4 and the leukemic cells expressed aberrant RNAs with fused virus-myb sequences. Furthermore, Myb expressed by these cells has been shown to be truncated by 47 or 71 amino acids. The present report examines the mechanisms of myb activation in leukemias induced by two other retroviruses, amphotropic virus 4070A and Friend strain FB29 (the leukemias are called AMPH-ML and FB-ML, respectively). This study revealed two additional c-myb proviral insertion sites in these promonocytic leukemias. One FB-ML had a proviral integration in exon 9, and expressed a C-terminally truncated Myb protein of 47 kDa similar to that previously demonstrated to be expressed in the myelomonocytic cell lines NFS60 and VFL-2. However, a sequence of reverse-transcribed and amplified RNA from this leukemia demonstrated that the truncation involved a loss of 248 amino acids compared with a loss of 240 amino acids in the myelomonocytic cell lines. Another leukemia had a provirus integrated in the 5' end of c-myb upstream of exon 2 (in the first intron) and produced a Myb protein that was indistinguishable on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis from normal Myb. This latter leukemia (FB-ML R1-4-10) expressed Myb with the smallest N-terminal truncation observed so far in promonocytic leukemias; translation begins at an ATG within c-myb exon 2, leading to loss of only 20 amino acids from the N terminus. Unlike the proteins produced in Moloney murine leukemia virus-induced promonocytic leukemias (MML) that have larger truncations, this protein has an intact DNA binding region and does not contain N-terminal amino acids encoded by gag. However, this protein is similar to all N-terminally truncated Mybs so far studied, in that the truncation resulted in deletion of a casein kinase II phosphorylation site which has been proposed to be involved in regulation of DNA binding.
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PMID:New sites of proviral integration associated with murine promonocytic leukemias and evidence for alternate modes of c-myb activation. 152 51

Digital imaging microscopy revealed that human platelets show periodic intracellular Ca++ elevation in response to 0.01 U/ml thrombin. MEG-01, a megakaryoblastic leukemia cell line, also responded with oscillatory intracellular Ca++ elevation (0.7-1 times/min) to thrombin (0.001-0.003U/ml). Ca++ transients appears to be fused with higher thrombin doses. With extracellular Ca++ concentrations of 0.1 mM or less, Ca++ oscillation could not be elicited, or even when present, it disappeared after a few spikings of [Ca++]i. Extracellular Ca++ concentrations of 0.3 mM or more were required to facilitate ongoing Ca++ oscillation, suggesting an important role of Ca++ influx for Ca++ oscillation.
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PMID:Thrombin-induced calcium oscillation in human platelets and MEG-01, a megakaryoblastic leukemia cell line. 155 May 92

Hemophilia B is an X chromosome-linked recessive bleeding disorder. To develop a somatic gene therapy for this disease, we have examined whether mouse skeletal myoblasts can serve as efficient vehicles for systemic delivery of recombinant factor IX. When mouse myoblasts (C2C12) transduced with a Moloney murine leukemia virus-based vector containing the bacterial beta-galactosidase gene were injected into mouse skeletal muscles, they fused with the existing and regenerating myofibers and continued to express beta-galactosidase. C2C12 myoblasts that were infected with recombinant retroviruses containing a human factor IX cDNA secreted biologically active human factor IX cDNA secreted biologically active human factor IX into the culture medium at a rate of 2.6 micrograms per 10(6) cells per day. Myotubes derived from these cells in culture continued to express human factor IX (0.68 micrograms/day from myotubes derived from 10(6) C2C12 cells). After injection of the transduced C2C12 myoblasts into skeletal muscles of mice, the systemic level of recombinant human factor IX was found to be as high as approximately 1 microgram/ml of serum. These results provide the rationale for using skeletal myoblasts as an efficient gene delivery vehicle in the somatic gene therapy for hemophilia B.
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PMID:Expression of human factor IX in mice after injection of genetically modified myoblasts. 156 26

ELP, the embryonal LTR binding protein, is a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily and a mouse homologue of Drosophila FTZ-F1. ELP is expressed specifically in undifferentiated mouse embryonal carcinoma cells and participates in suppression of the Moloney murine leukemia virus genome. The zinc finger domain of the protein was fused with glutathione S-transferase and was successfully used for isolating genomic targets. Sixteen genomic fragments were isolated and twelve of them strongly interacted with ELP. Six of the ELP binding fragments were analyzed further. All of these contained the multiple binding sites for ELP, which matched well with the consensus binding sequence for FTZ-F1, YCAAGGYCR. Among these, three fragments functioned as negative regulatory elements in response to ELP, when placed upstream to the promoter region of the Moloney leukemia virus. These results indicate that ELP may function as a negative transcription factor for a variety of cellular sequences, in addition to suppressing expression of Moloney leukemia virus in early embryonal cells. It was also shown that the procedure employed here works well for isolation of genomic targets of transcription factors.
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PMID:Isolation of high affinity cellular targets of the embryonal LTR binding protein, an undifferentiated embryonal carcinoma cell-specific repressor of Moloney leukemia virus. 157 38

We have analyzed a series of Moloney murine leukemia (M-MuLV) envelope (env) protein fusions to the marker proteins invertase and placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP), expressed in Psi2 retrovirus packaging cells. The yeast invertase protein, fused at its third amino acid residue to the amino-terminal signal sequence and 17 residues of the mature M-MuLV env protein, retained its enzymatic activity and was secreted from mammalian cells. However, env protein fusions to the C-terminal portion of invertase were inactive. In contrast, some, but not all, env protein fusions at the C-terminal region of PLAP were enzymatically active: PLAP fusions containing long C-terminal portions of env localized to the rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER) and possessed low enzyme activity levels, while fusion constructs containing relatively short portions of the M-MuLV env gene localized to the Golgi and had higher activity levels. Those proteins that localized to the Golgi also were processed, in part, to forms of 67 to 68 kDa, the size of the mature PLAP protein. Since PLAP ordinarily is transferred to a phosphatidyl-inositol glycan tail (PIG-tail) in the Golgi and then transported to the plasma membrane, it appears that Golgi-localized PLAP-env fusions are processed imperfectly. PLAP itself, when expressed in Psi2 cells, accumulated at the plasma membrane and, unlike the PIG-tailed Thy-1 protein, was not incorporated into virus particles. Thus, the reported incorporation of the Thy-1 protein into M-MuLV virions does not appear to be a consequence of its glycoprotein tail.
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PMID:Retroviral envelope protein fusions to secreted and membrane markers. 158 54

Activating ras mutations are frequent (25-60%) in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) and in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (30%), in contrast to chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in which the incidence is very low (0-3%). This might reflect that the leukemic cell in CML is at a level of differentiation in which ras gene activation is not involved or, alternatively, might be due to the presence in CML of the bcrlabl fused gene. We have analyzed the presence of point mutations in codons 12, 13, 59, 61 and 63 of N-, K-, and H-ras genes, in 26 cases of Philadelphia-chromosome-positive, bcrlabl-positive acute leukemia (Ph+ AL), and in eight CMML cases by using the polymerase chain reaction. Aberrant ras genes were detected in a single Ph+ AL case, and in four out of eight CMML patients. The Ph+ AL showing altered ras allele had an unusual point mutation in H-ras gene, substituting leucine for glutamine. This mutation has not been previously found in any hematological disease. Our findings suggest that ras mutations are probably not involved in the pathogenesis of those leukemias in which blast cells contain bcrlabl oncogene activation.
Leukemia 1992 Apr
PMID:Low frequency of ras oncogene mutations in Philadelphia-positive acute leukemia and report of a novel mutation H61 Leu in a single case. 158 96

p56lck, a tyrosine protein kinase of the src family, is overexpressed in two murine thymoma cell lines, LSTRA and Thy19, as a result of the integration of Moloney murine leukemia virus sequences upstream of the lck gene. The majority of the p56lck in these cell lines is translated from a hybrid mRNA comprised of the 5' untranslated region of the murine leukemia virus env mRNA and lck coding sequences. The retroviral promoter giving rise to this transcript has been molecularly cloned. To examine whether overexpression of unmutated p56lck might induce cellular transformation, we constructed a plasmid in which the murine leukemia virus promoter from LSTRA cells directed the expression of p56lck. This construct gave rise to foci when transfected into rat 208F fibroblasts. Cells from many of the foci also grew in soft agar. Tryptic peptide mapping showed that the p56lck in the transformed cells was phosphorylated at Tyr-394, the autophosphorylation site, but not detectably at Tyr-505, an inhibitory site. Because an antiserum made to the carboxy terminus of p56lck could not immunoprecipitate p56lck from these transformed cells, the possibility arose that the proteins expressed in the transformed fibroblasts contained mutations that altered the carboxy terminus of the protein. cDNAs derived from the 3' ends of the lck mRNAs in two of the foci were cloned, and both were found to be derived from an lck gene that was truncated upstream of the codon for Tyr-505 and fused to random sequences derived from other parts of the construct used for transfection. lck therefore resembles several other src family members in that it can be rendered oncogenic by replacement of the region encoding the inhibitory, carboxy-terminal phosphorylation site by random amino acid sequences.
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PMID:Generation and characterization of transforming variants of the lck tyrosine protein kinase. 159 48


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