Cytoplasmic factors involved in erythroid differentiation in mouse erythroleukemia (MEL) cells

In order to identify and characterize intracellular factors involved in in vitro differentiation of mouse erythroleukemia (MEL) cells, the differentiation process was analyzed by cell and cytoplast fusion. The results suggested that the process is not a single cascade of molecular chain reactions, but a synergistic result of two different inducible intracellular reactions. One reaction is induced following damage to DNA (inhibition of DNA replication) and is not specific to MEL cells. The other reaction, which is specific to MEL cells, is fully induced by typical erythroid inducing agents such as dimethylsulfoxide or hexamethylenebisacetamide even at concentrations suboptimal for the erythroid induction. Based upon these data, we searched for the putative trans-acting differentiation-inducing factors and detected two proteinaceous factors (DIF-I and DIF-II) in the cytosol fraction which apparently correspond to these reactions. When, partially purified, either one of these factors was introduced into undifferentiated MEL cells, it triggered erythroid differentiation, provided that the recipient cells had been potentiated by the induction of the other reaction. In this article, we summarize the basic characteristics of these cytoplasmic factors involved in erythroid differentiation in MEL cells.