Biological Effects of Retroviral Transfection of the Murine Interleukin-3 Gene into FDCP-Mix Cells

Several genetic changes are believed to be necessary to convert normal haemopoietic cells into leukaemic cells. These changes are associated with various biological events including immortalisation, clonal selection, changes in growth factor requirements and stromal cell dependence and changes in the balance of self-renewal and differentiation. Within the haemopoietic system, a variety of growth factors are now known to play a critical role in recruiting proliferation and development of the most primitive multipotent stem cells and the lineage-restricted progenitor cells. Some of these growth factors are biologically restricted and are able to recruit only the lineage-restricted progenitor cells (e.g. M-CSF, G-CSF and erythropoietin); others show a broader range of activities and can stimulate growth and development of multipotent stem cells and facilitate their development into several cell lineages (Dexter 1987). An example of the latter class of growth factor is Interleukin-3 (IL3).