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Updated: Aug 30, 2026

Preparation of Primary Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Cells in Different Cell Cycle Phases by Centrifugal Elutriation
Published on: November 10, 2017
Cyclin D3 and c-MYC control glucocorticoid-induced cell cycle arrest but not apoptosis in lymphoblastic leukemia
M J Ausserlechner1, P Obexer, G Böck
1Institute of Pathophysiology, Division of Molecular Pathophysiology, University of Innsbruck, Medical School, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria. Ausserlechner@uibk.ac.at
Abstract:
Glucocorticoids (GC) induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in lymphoblastic leukemia cells. To investigate cell cycle effects of GC in the absence of obscuring apoptotic events, we used human CCRF-CEM leukemia cells protected from cell death by transgenic bcl-2. GC treatment arrested these cells in the G1 phase of the cell cycle due to repression of cyclin D3 and c-myc. Cyclin E and Cdk2 protein levels remained high, but the kinase complex was inactive due to increased levels of bound p27(Kip1). Conditional expression of cyclin D3 and/or c-myc was sufficient to prevent GC-induced G1 arrest and p27(Kip1) accumulation but, importantly, did not interfere with the induction of apoptosis. The combined data suggest that repression of both, c-myc and cyclin D3, is necessary to arrest human leukemia cells in the G1 phase of the cell division cycle, but that neither one is required for GC-induced apoptosis.
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