Expression of erythroid differentiation and terminal cell division in induced Friend leukemia cells.

Hexamethylenebisacetamide and hemin are both inducers of Friend leukemia cells to express globin genes. In Friend leukemia cells treated with hexamethylenebisacetamide the accumulation and translation of globin mRNA and the accumulation of hemoglobin are associated with terminal cell division. As hemin does not induce the expression of the set of genes responsible for terminal cell division, the relationship between cell cycle and globin gene expression was investigated during the late differentiation of Friend leukemia cells treated with hemin. Our results demonstrate that terminal cell division is not necessarily performed in cells which accumulate both globin mRNA and hemoglobin, suggesting that these features are not necessarily coupled in leukemia erythroid differentiation.