[Expression of retinoic acid receptor gamma gene in ES cells and its effect on their differentiation and apoptosis].

We have constructed pSG5-RAR gamma-neo plasmid containing mouse retinoic acid receptor gamma (RAR gamma) gene and neo gene, and introduced it into embryonic stem ES-5 cells, by calcium phosphate mediated transfection. Some G418-resistant clones were isolated and from RNA dot blot analysis of these clones, a clone overexpressing RAR gamma gene was established, designated as ES-gamma cell line. Northern blot hydridization and Southern blot hydridization analysis of ES-gamma cells (Fig 3, 4) demonstrated that ES-gamma cells overexpressed exogenous RAR gamma mRNA and the exogenous RAR gamma cDNA integrated into the genome of ES cells. ES-gamma cells retained undifferentiated morphology and positive alkaline phosphatase activity (Plate I, Fig. 1, 2), so it resembled ES-5 cells in terms of stem cell characteristics. When ES-gamma cells were subcutaneously inoculated into nude mouse and differentiated in vivo, tumorous nodules containing various tissue structures were obtained, demonstrating their pluripotent properties just like parent ES-5 cells. Contrasting with ES-5 cells, the histological features of tumors showed no cartilage tissues, but abundant muscle tissues and keratinized cyst like structures constituted by stratified squamous epithelia (Plate I, Fig. 3). Differentiating in vitro by hanging drop culture methods, ES-gamma cells differentiated mostly into fibroblast-like cells, (Plate II, Fig. 1-5). The above results indicated that overexpression of RAR gamma gene changed the cell type of ES cells differentiating in vivo and in vitro. During the differentiation of ES-5 cells induced by RA, a large number of cells rounded up, detached from the dish and tended to die. We suspected that this phenomenon may be apoptosis. The ultrastructure appearance of the dying cells displayed typical apoptotic changes including chromatin condensation and nuclear fragmentation (Plate I, Fig. 4, 5). Detection of DNA fragments using agarose gel electrophoresis showed characteristic laddered patterns of apoptotic DNA fragments (Fig. 5). The above results indicated that RA induced apoptosis of ES-5 cells in the course of differentiation. The percentage of apoptosis of ES-5 cells increased accordingly, with the increase of RA concentration (Fig. 6). With the same concentration of RA 10(-7) mol/L, the percentage of apoptotic of ES-gamma death was roughly one times more than that of ES-5 cells (Fig. 7), a fact indicating that RAR gamma may mediate the apoptotic signal transduction of ES cells by RA.