Overexpression of PDGF-B in murine hematopoietic cells induces a lethal myeloproliferative syndrome in vivo.

Although PDGF is not a primary hematopoietic cytokine, effects in hematopoietic cell cultures have been reported. We recently described responses of multilineage hematopoietic precursors to PDGF. The effects were shown to be neutralized by antibody to IL-1 beta and mediated by marrow macrophages that expressed PDGF receptor RNA and responded to PDGF by upregulation of IL-1 RNA. The present study was performed to determine whether constitutive expression of PDGF by hematopoietic cells would have hematopoietic consequences in vivo. Retroviral vectors containing a PDGF-B gene were constructed and infected into normal marrow cells. Irradiated mice reconstituted with infected cells consistently developed a lethal myeloproliferative syndrome with anemia, neutrophilia and monocytosis, declining hematopoiesis in marrow with shift to the spleen, and extensive infiltration of immature hematopoietic cells into the parenchymal organs and connective tissues. In addition to PDGF, the retroviral constructs expressed a neo resistance marker. Phenotypic expression patterns in fibroblasts and in hematopoietic colony-forming cells in vitro were consistent with a significant degree of interaction between the two expressed inserts. Moreover, selection of infected cells for G418 resistance significantly reduced not only the number of infected reconstituting cells but also the intensity of the evoked syndrome in vivo. The observations have important implications for projected gene therapy protocols, and identify a novel potential pathway to myeloproliferative disease.