Megakaryocyte-like increase in ploidy of Friend's erythroleukemia cells induced to endoreplication by colcemid.

Previous work from this laboratory has shown that Friend's murine erythroleukemia cells (MELCs) express some bio-chemical traits of the megakaryocytic lineage. The supposed mixed erythroid/megakaryocytic nature of these cells has been investigated further by challenging MELCs with the antimicrotubule agent colcemid. This compound, at the concentration of 40 nM, was found to induce a striking arrest of cell growth without significant effects on viability. At the same time, the bulk of treated MELCs underwent a large increase in size to contain, after 3 days, as much as 4 times more proteins and 5 times more DNA than controls. As shown by high rates of 3H-thymidine incorporation, increase in DNA content was the result of active synthesis without completion of intervening mitosis according to a process that closely resembled endoreplication. Eventually, colcemidinduced MELCs presented multilobed nuclei and were arranged into discrete ploidy groups containing up to 16 N levels of DNA. Moreover, upon colcemid addition, MELCs initiated a polyploid response that was shown to continue, even in the absence of the inducer, to yield cells that became strongly positive for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) in the late stages of culture. These effects were compatible with a colcemid-induced commitment of MELCs to megakaryocyte differentiation, for which these cells seemed to be definitely programmed. The expression of megakaryocyte features in MELCs provided further evidence for the bipotentiality (erythroid/megakaryocytic) of this model.