Differential effects of TGF-beta 1 on normal and leukemic human hematopoietic cell proliferation

We evaluated the effects of transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) on the growth of hematopoietic progenitors in normal donors and in patients with hematologic malignancies now designed as clonal disorders of multipotential stem cells. TGF-beta 1 at 80 pM exhibited differential effects on the normal hematopoietic progenitors when cells were stimulated with different growth factors, such as G-CSF, GM-CSF, interleukin-3 (IL-3), or stem cell factor (SCF). The suppressive effect by TGF-beta 1 was increased for growth with GM-CSF, IL-3, and SCF, and growth with G-CSF was unaffected in hematologic malignancies, TGF-beta 1 suppression for growth with G-CSF was increased for essential thrombocythemia (ET) and polycythemia vera; chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in chronic phase; CML in accelerated phase; CML in myeloid crisis; myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) in refractory anemia; MDS in refractory anemia with an excess of blasts; and acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML). In CML-myeloid crisis and AML, TGF-beta 1 almost completely abolished the growth, with some patient-to-patient variation. The mean ED50s for the growth of leukemic blast progenitors were 1.6, 1.2, 0.7, and 0.2 pM in the presence of G-CSF, GM-CSF, IL-3, and SCF, respectively, c-myc and c-myb antisense oligonucleotides significantly suppressed the growth of leukemic blast progenitors, but not that of clonogenic cells from normal donors and patients with ET. We also demonstrated that TGF-beta 1 inhibits mRNA expression by AML blasts for c-myc and/or c-myb. When the data are taken together, growth suppression by TGF-beta 1 appears to increase with the progression of clonal evolution in hematologic malignancies.