Production of hepatocyte growth factor by human haematopoietic cell lines

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a multi-functional molecule characterized as a mitogen, a motogen, a morphogen and a tumour suppressor. Little is known about cell types which produce HGF, so we analysed HGF production from cultured cell lines of haematopoietic cell lineage. A total of 138 human leukemia and virus-transformed cell lines were studied and the levels of HGF were measured by ELISA. A significant amount of HGF was detected in a variety of cell lines, including one T, four B, five non-T non-B, eight myeloid one erythroid and two EBV-transformed B cell lines. The amount of HGF spontaneously produced by three of the myeloid cell lines, KCL-22 (33.48 ng/ml), KG-1A (26.21 ng/ml), and KG-1 (18.81 ng/ml), is comparable to the amount produced by human embryonic lung fibroblast cells, known as high HGF-producers. Biological assays together with Western blot analyses verified that the immunoreactive HGF detected in the culture supernatant of haematopoietic cell lines had the same properties as authentic HGF. Moreover, HGF mRNA was detected in high HGF producers by Northern blot analysis. Our findings that lymphoid and myeloid cells function as a source of HGF may provide significant evidence for the involvement of haematopoietic cells in HGF-related morphogenesis and cell growth.