Expression of p210bcr/abl by metallothionein promoter induced T-cell leukemia in transgenic mice

The p210bcr/abl chimeric protein is considered to be implicated in the pathogenesis of Philadelphia chromosome-positive human leukemias. To investigate its biologic function in vivo, we generated transgenic mice expressing p210bcr/abl driven by the metallothionein enhancer/promoter. Two of six founder mice and the transgenic progeny developed leukemias several months after birth. In the leukemic tissues, the expression of the p210bcr/abl transgene product was detected and the increased tyrosine-phosphorylation of cellular proteins was observed. The expressed p210bcr/abl transgene product was shown to possess an enhanced kinase activity. The leukemic cells showed rearrangements in the T-cell receptor loci, indicating that the leukemic cells were monoclonal and committed to the T-cell lineage. Polymerase chain reaction analysis for tissue distribution of p210bcr/abl expression showed that, in the transgenic line that reproducibly developed leukemias, p210bcr/abl was expressed in the hematopoietic tissues such as thymus and spleen; on the other hand, in the transgenic lines that have not developed leukemias, p210bcr/abl expression was detected only in the nonhematopoietic tissues such as the brain and kidney. These results suggest that the tumorigenicity of the p210bcr/abl chimeric protein is restricted to the hematopoietic tissues in vivo and that an event enhancing p210bcr/abl expression contributed a proliferative advantage to hematopoietic precursor cells and eventually developed T-cell leukemia in transgenic mice.