Figure 1.
AKT complements EpoR signaling in inducing erythroid differentiation in wild-type and JAK2-/- fetal liver progenitor cells. TER 119- E14 wild-type (A) or JAK2-/- (C) fetal liver cells were transduced with a bicistronic retroviral vector (MIG) or MIG containing the indicated inserts and cultured in the presence or absence of Epo (2 U/mL) on RetroNectin. Thirty-six hours later, live GFP-positive cells from wild-type–(A) or JAK2-/--transduced cells (C) were assayed for CFU-E–generated colony content as determined by diaminobenzidine staining of hemoglobin. Graphs are from duplicates of 4 (A) and 3 (C) independent experiments. The average of the absolute number of CFU-E–derived colonies formed from vector control–transduced cells in the presence of Epo was 3160 ± 64 (n = 4) per 105 wild-type TER 119- cells and 1248 ± 263 per 105 JAK2-transduced JAK2-/-- (n = 3) plated cells. (B) Western blot analysis of transduced NIH 3T3 cells with 1:10 dilution of the retroviral supernatant. The upper band in the activated AKT*-transduced cells corresponds to the Flag-tagged myristylated AKT. (D) Real-time PCR analysis of the β-globin gene in live GFP-positive cells from panel A. Representative graph from duplicate analysis of 2 independent experiments. (E) Real-time PCR analysis of kinetics of up-regulation of β-globin gene expression in TER 119- E14 wild-type fetal liver–derived cells transduced with MIG-AKT* (results expressed as relative to time zero are from total cells). (F) JAK2-/- fetal liver–transduced cells with MIG, MIG-JAK2, or with a constitutively active AKT (MIG-AKT*) and cultured in the presence of Epo (MIG-JAK2 cells) or in the absence of Epo (vector control and MIG-AKT* cells) were analyzed for erythroid-cell differentiation 36 hours later (note TER 119+ cells within transduced GFP-positive cells). (G) Representative field of Wright-Giemsa staining of live GFP-positive transduced JAK2-/--derived cells (magnification, × 1000). Arrows show (i) polychromatophilic erythroblast and (ii) polychromatophilic erythroblast and normoblast. Images were obtained using a Nikon Eclipse E600 microscope (Nikon, Garden City, NJ) and a 100 ×/0.3 numeric aperture oil immersion lens. Images were captured using an RT Slider SPOT 2.3.1 camera and SPOT Advanced software (both from Diagnostic Instruments, Sterling Heights, MI).