Dissociation of c-fos induction from macrophage differentiation in human myeloid leukemic cell lines

Treatment of five human myeloid leukemic cell lines (KG1, ML3, HL-60, U-937, and HEL) with TPA was followed by macrophage differentiation and was accompanied by an early and transient increase in the mRNA level of c-fos proto-oncogene. The induction of c-fos was also observed in human cell lines K562 and K-Gla that did not respond to TPA with terminal macrophage differentiation. The treatment of HL-60 and U-937 cell lines with 1-oleoyl-2-acetylglycerol, a synthetic analog of diacylglycerol that, like TPA, stimulates protein kinase C activity, was followed by early and transient induction of c-fos mRNA in the absence of terminal macrophage differentiation. Finally, treatment of HL-60 with TPA in the presence of retinal, an inhibitor of protein kinase C, drastically reduced the induction of c-fos mRNA but had no effect on the terminal macrophage differentiation that is induced in this cell line by TPA. These results indicate that the induction of c-fos and terminal macrophage differentiation in response to TPA treatment can be dissociated in the in vitro models provided by human myeloid leukemic cell lines. Moreover, these findings suggest that the induction of c-fos is not only insufficient but may also be unnecessary for the differentiation along the monocyte-macrophage pathway.