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Differential expression of the BCR gene in sequential stages of murine hematopoietic hierarchy

Leukemia volume 25, pages 711–713 (2011)Cite this article

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The recent manuscript by Marega et al.1 entitled ‘BCR and BCR-ABL regulation during myeloid differentiation in healthy donors and chronic phase/blast crisis chronic myeloid leukemia patients’, which reported the BCR expression during the different stages of maturation of human myeloid cells provides important insight into the nature of chronic myeloid leukemia, particularly the similarity of BCR and BCR-ABL differential expression patterns during myeloid maturation in healthy subjects and patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia, respectively. We studied the expression of BCR transcripts in the murine hematopoiesis. Similar to Marega et al., we found that BCR is differentially expressed during murine hematopoietic maturation. Further, our findings begin to address one of the conundrums ensuing from the work by Dr Eaves and her team in which it was reported that BCR-ABL transduction of mouse bone marrow resulted in expansion of granulocytes, lymphocytes and erythrocyte.2

Indeed, high BCR transcript levels were seen in LTR-HSCs and interestingly in the pE/Meg progenitors (BCR/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase of 0.008 and 0.0093, respectively) (Figure 1a and b), intermediate levels were found in ITR-HSCs and pentapotent and pNeut/Mac cells (BCR/glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase ratios of 0.0022, 0.001 and 0.002, respectively), whereas low levels were detected in pMeg, pMac, pNeut, Meg and Neut (0.000231, 0.000073, 0.000239, 0.000158 and 0.000169) (Figure 1a and b). Finally, BCR Expression was not detected in the multipotent B+, tetrapotent, burst-forming unit-erythroid, colony-forming unit-erythroid and the terminally-differentiated cells (E, Mac, mastocytic, B and T) (Figure 1a and b). We also analyzed BCR gene transcript levels in HSCs that were harvested from normal marrow in G0 phase and after stimulation, in culture to undergo mitosis. Interestingly, when BCR transcript levels were compared in LTR-HSCs and ITR-HSCs harvested from normal marrow in G0 phase and after stimulation to undergo mitosis, cycling LTR-HSCs and ITR-HSCs showed 7.6- and 4.3-fold increase, respectively, in BCR transcripts (Figure 1c).

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  1. Department of Stem Cell Biology, Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    H Khoury, M Barbara, N N Iscove & M D Minden

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  1. H Khoury
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  2. M Barbara
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  3. N N Iscove
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  4. M D Minden
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Correspondence to M D Minden.

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Khoury, H., Barbara, M., Iscove, N. et al. Differential expression of the BCR gene in sequential stages of murine hematopoietic hierarchy. Leukemia 25, 711–713 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/leu.2010.303

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