Leukocyte tyrosine kinase (LTK) is a newly discovered member of the receptor tyrosine kinase genes, which was identified in both the mouse and human independently by us and others (1-4). Although it was initially reported as an unusual transmembrane protein devoid of an extracellular domain in both the mouse and human (1, 2), it was recently reported that both mouse and human LTK may have larger extracellular domains (4-6). By combining the open reading frames (ORFs) from four independent cDNA clones, human LTK was predicted to have an ATG start codon upstream of the initially proposed ATG codon (2) and a larger extracellular domain of 347 amino acids (6). On the other hand, mouse LTK was shown to use an upstream CTG codon, which is also conserved in the human, as the translation initiation codon and was proposed to contain an extracellular domain of 108 amino acids (4). Here we report cloning of a human LTK cDNA clone containing the complete ORF in a single clone, which predicts the existence of a receptor tyrosine kinase protein. ¶ The extracellular domain predicted from this clone is 423 amino acids long, which is larger than that previously predicted (6). Furthermore, our results also reveal a set of differently spliced human LTK cDNAs, which predict a receptor protein lacking the tyrosine kinase domain and a soluble receptor protein consisting of only the extracellular domain.
The growth of MG63 human osteosarcoma cell line in 5% serum is stimulated by epidermal growth factor (EGF), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), or heparin-binding growth factor-1 (HBGF-1). The mitogenic effect of EGF and PDGF is completely blocked by TFG-beta at 1 ng per ml and the effect of HBGF-1 is attenuated by 75-80%. Treatment of MG63 cells with TGF-beta reduces HBGF-1 receptor binding affinity from 1.24 x 10(-11) M to 3.51 x 10(-11) M with no change on the receptor number (1.1 x 10(3) per cell). The receptor-binding affinity of EGF and PDGF is not altered by TGF-beta treatment; however, the number of EGF receptor is increased by 25%. Both EGF and PDGF stimulate MG63 cellular tyrosine kinase activity, and such stimulation is inhibited by TGF-beta pretreatment. No change in the cellular protein tyrosine phosphorylation pattern can be detected in HBGF-1-stimulated cells with and without TGF-beta pretreatment. These data suggest that TGF-beta inhibits EGF and PDGF mitogenicity by blocking EGF- and PDGF-stimulated tyrosine kinase activity and attenuates HBGF-1 mitogenicity by decreasing its receptor affinity.
As an approach to characterizing the molecules involved in the hematopoietic microenvironment provided by a murine clonal preadipose cell line MC3T3-G2/PA6 (PA6), we developed a unique system to detect the early phase of signal transduction caused by the direct cell-to-cell interaction using the reporter plasmid pfosluc2 with the c-fos enhancer/promoter linked with the Photinus pyralis luciferase gene. The plasmid pfosluc2 was genetically introduced into a mouse myeloid leukemia cell line NFS-60 which showed a growth dependency on contact with PA6 cells, and the mechanism by which stromal PA6 cells promote the proliferation of NFS-60 cells through the direct cell-to-cell interaction was analyzed. The direct cell-to-cell interaction with PA6 cells was found to cause a significant c-fos induction to NFS-60 cells within 1 h. Approximately 105 cDNA clones prepared from PA6 cells were screened for their activity to promote the c-fos expression in NFS-60 cells through the direct cell-to-cell interaction, and 13 positive clones were obtained. Of these positive clones, five clones encoded the stem cell factor, and the others encoded the hepatocyte growth factor (HGF). The c-fos induction caused by the contact with PA6 cells in NFS-60 was completely inhibited by addition of both antagonistic anti-c-kit and anti-HGF antibodies. These results represent direct evidence for the action of HGF on the proliferation of hematopoietic cells through direct cell-to-cell interaction with stromal cells. Thus, our developed reporter system can be useful in investigating the direct cell-to-cell interaction between stromal and hematopoietic cells.
Glutamine has been shown to be a preferred energy source for some established cell lines and cancer cells in culture (Kovacevic, 1971; Kovacevic, 1972; Lavietes, 1974). Empirically, glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in most of the culture media developed. The major end product of glutamine metabolism is ammonia. Ammonia build up is one of the limiting factors in the proliferation of mammalian cells in higher density culture and is directly related to the initial glutamine concentration. The susceptibility of glutamine to thermodecomposition prevents the heat sterilization of glutamine-enriched media and this significantly increases the cost of medium preparation at the industrial scale. In an attempt to overcome these drawbacks, a population of Namalva cells capable of growing in glutamine-free media was established. The adapted cells were found to contain a higher level of glutamine synthetase activity which enable them to synthesize sufficient amounts of glutamine for their growth.
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