Effect of Ras Inhibition in Hematopoiesis and BCR/ABL Leukemogenesis

Date
2008-6-5
Authors
Baum, Karina J.
Ren, Ruibao
Version
OA Version
Citation
Baum, Karina J., Ruibao Ren. "Effect of Ras Inhibition in Hematopoiesis and BCR/ABL Leukemogenesis" Journal of Hematology and Oncology 1:5. (2008)
Abstract
Ras small GTPases are activated in many hematopoietic growth factor signaling and in hematological malignancies, but their role in hematopoiesis and leukemogenesis is not completely known. Here we examined the effect of Ras inhibition by a dominant negative mutant of Ras, N17 H-Ras, in adult hematopoiesis and in BCR/ABL leukemogenesis using the mouse bone marrow transduction and transplantation approach. We found that N17 H-Ras expression suppressed B- and T-lymphopoiesis and erythropoiesis. Interestingly, N17 H-Ras did not suppress myelopoiesis in the bone marrow, yet it greatly attenuated BCR/ABL-induced chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)-like myeloproliferative disease. Most BCR/ABL + N17 H-Ras mice eventually developed pro-B lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma (B-ALL). These results suggest that Ras activation is essential for the development of lymphoid and erythroid cells but not myeloid cells and that Ras is a critical target of BCR/ABL in the pathogenesis of CML, but not B-ALL.
Description
License
Copyright 2008 Baum and Ren; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.