EARLY EVENTS LEADING TO ERYTHROID-DIFFERENTIATION IN MOUSE FRIEND-CELLS REVEALED BY CELL-FUSION EXPERIMENTS

  • 1 January 1984
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 44  (5) , 1756-1760
Abstract
Cell fusion with 2 genetically marked Friend (murine erythroleukemia) cells has made it possible to characterize the very early events leading to erythroid differentiation, particularly the nature of reactions initiated by inducers such as dimethyl sulfoxide. Brief exposure of Friend cells to dimethyl sulfoxide (as well as butyric acid or hexamethylenebisacetamide) induces an early cellular activity required for erythroid differentiation which is detected only by fusion with UV irradiated cells. The induction process of this activity consists of at least 2 distinct stages. In the 1st stage, the reaction proceeds without supply of metabolites from the medium and exhibits sensitivity to tumor promoters. The 2nd stage is tightly coupled to cellular metabolic activity, notably protein synthesis. Under normal conditions, the induced activity is short-lived, suggesting turnover of the molecules responsible for this activity. There appears to be a signal produced following dimethyl sulfoxide pulse which acts as an inducer for this activity. The signal remains active for as long as 40 h when protein synthesis is blocked.