Proto-oncogene expression in bovine peripheral blood leukemic lymphocytes during their spontaneous proliferation,...

The expression of various proto-oncogenes in primary culture of lymphocytes from peripheral blood of bovine with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) was studied. Cellular proto-oncogenes encode proteins that propagate growth, differentiation or apoptosis signals from cell membrane to nucleus. The proliferation and differentiation of normal eukaryotic cells are precisely controlled. Tumor cells usually are characterized both by the continuous growth signal and by the block of cell differentiation. We have previously reported that along with spontaneous proliferation, bovine CLL lymphocytes continuously differentiate and enter apoptosis in vitro. CLL cells with an autocrine growth mechanism and at the same time undergoing spontaneous differentiation and apoptosis in vitro provide a new model system to investigate the possible involvement of various proto-oncogenes in the regulation of cellular proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. Northern blot analysis revealed simultaneous expression of a number of proto-oncogenes in CLL cells. Transcripts of c-fos, c-myc, c-myb, A-raf, c-raf1, hck, IL-2 receptor alpha-chain (IL-2R alpha) were found in lymphocytes at the peak of their proliferative activity in culture. Kinetics studies demonstrated that CLL cells constitutively express transcripts of so-called immediate response nuclear proto-oncogenes c-myc, c-fos as well as cytoplasmic proto-oncogenes hck and c-raf1, i.e., genes coding for tyrosine and serine-threonine protein kinases, respectively. Expression level did not change significantly during all stages of CLL cells in culture. The results show that continuous expression of c-myc mRNA does not prevent CLL cell differentiation and may be associated with apoptotic cell death.