Polycythaemia vera. III. Burst-forming units-erythroid (BFU-E) response to stem cell factor and c-kit receptor expression.

We previously demonstrated that highly purified normal human blood burst-forming units-erythroid (BFU-E) need the direct action of recombinant human stem cell factor (rSCF) in the presence of recombinant human erythropoietin (rEP) and recombinant human interleukin-3 (rIL-3) for further development in a serum-free medium. To study the response of polycythaemia vera (PV) BFU-E to rSCF, we performed dose-response experiments in a serum-free medium using highly purified BFU-E from PV patients. A marked increase in the number of PV bursts occurred with increasing concentrations of rSCF, compared to normal burst formation, when the cells were cultured in the presence of rIL-3 at 1 U/ml. The percentage of maximum growth for normal BFU-E was 31 +/- 11% while for PV it was 64 +/- 9% at the highest concentration of rSCF (P < 0.01). Without rIL-3, only 11% of maximum normal BFU-E growth occurred as the rSCF concentration was increased and the size of the colonies was very small, but PV BFU-E still expressed 48% of the maximum number of large erythroid bursts (P < 0.001). This demonstrated an enhanced sensitivity of PV BFU-E to rSCF, compared to normal BFU-E. The pattern of 59Fe incorporation into haem after 8 d of cell culture indicated that PV BFU-E had a time course of maturation and a degree of cellular maturity similar to normal BFU-E. The percentage positivity and intensity of c-kit receptors on PV erythroid cells were examined using immunofluorescence flow cytometry. When BFU-E, CFU-E, or erythroblasts were incubated with phycoerythrin-conjugated SR-1 anti-c-kit receptor monoclonal antibody, 90% of the PV and normal BFU-E displayed c-kit receptor at comparable intensities, as well as 80% of the PV and normal CFU-E. A distinct loss of c-kit expression occurred with erythroid differentiation beyond the CFU-E stage, but at all stages no difference of c-kit receptor expression was evident for PV erythroid precursors compared to normal precursors. These results indicate that the hypersensitivity to rSCF did not appear to be related to the number of c-kit receptors. Since we have previously shown that highly purified PV BFU-E are hypersensitive to rIL-3 and rGM-CSF, as well as rEP, it is now evident that PV BFU-E are hypersensitive to each of the cytokines that have a prominent role in guiding their normal proliferation and differentiation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)