A balance between self-renewal and commitment in the murine erythroleukemia cells with the transferred c-myc gene; an in vitro stochastic model.

When murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells, having the transferred rat c-myc gene under the control of human metallothionein II gene promoter, are induced to differentiate with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), the level of differentiation is dependent on the c-myc levels which are modulated by the Zn++ ion. The clonal transformant cell line (38-2) can continuously grow in the presence of both DMSO and Zn++ ion. The proportion of differentiated cells in a population of the continuous culture is strongly affected by the concentration of Zn++ ions. These results suggested that a balance between self-renewal and commitment to differentiation of MEL cells is determined by the c-myc level, and that this cell line may be suitable for studying the stochastic process of growth and differentiation of hemopoietic stem cells.