A 62-kilodalton tyrosine phosphoprotein constitutively present in primary chronic phase chronic myelogenous leukemia enriched lineage negative blast populations.

Ph+ chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is associated with the reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 culminating in the production of the chimeric p210bcr/abl protein possessing elevated protein tyrosine kinase activity relative to the normal c-abl tyrosine kinase. Our recent studies have revealed subtle differences in the growth, phenotypic and morphologic characteristics of subpopulations of primary lin- Ph+ chronic phase CML blasts and comparable primary normal blasts. In an attempt to correlate these biologic abnormalities and the presence of the p210bcr/abl protein, we initiated studies to identify differences in proteins constitutively phosphorylated on tyrosine in whole cell lysates of comparable primary early blast subpopulations derived from normal and Ph+ chronic phase CML marrows. Immunoblotting with anti-P-tyr Abs demonstrated a prominent 62 kDa phosphotyrosyl protein (pp62) constitutively present in 11/11 Ph+ chronic phase linblasts while being virtually undetectable in equivalent amounts of protein derived from 15/15 and 2/2 comparable normal and Ph-negative chronic phase blast populations, respectively. Immunoblotting with an Ab reportedly specific for the ras GTPase activating protein (GAP) associated p62 protein revealed that the pp62 present in CML blasts is not immunologically related to the former protein. Although the identity of the pp62 is presently not known, its prominent presence in chronic phase CML blasts, in which the only known molecular abnormality is putatively the p210bcr/abl protein, strongly suggests that it may be a critical p210bcr/abl substrate involved in an early stage of expansion of the Ph+ clone.