Enhancement by retinoid of hemin-induced differentiation of human leukemia K562 cell line.

The effect of retinoid on human leukemia K562 cell differentiation induced by hemin was examined. Retinoids (retinoic acid and synthetic retinoids [Am80 and Ch55]) dose-dependently enhanced hemin-induced erythroid differentiation of K562 cells, though these retinoids themselves did not induce the differentiation. Under optimal conditions, these retinoids caused a doubling of the population of hemin-induced differentiated cells. In addition, co-treatment of cells with hemin and retinoid led to longer maintenance of the differentiated state after the removal of hemin, which might imply acquisition of irreversibility of hemin-induced differentiation. These results suggest that the combination of retinoids with other differentiation inducers might be useful for leukemia therapy in cases where the leukemic cells are poorly responsive or unresponsive to retinoids, alone.