Structural and functional studies on the leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIF-R): gene and soluble form of LIF-R, and cytoplasmic domain of LIF-R required for differentiation and growth arrest of myeloid leukemic cells.

The leukemia inhibitory factor receptor (LIF-R) subunit is a component of cell-surface receptor complexes for the multifunctional cytokines, LIF, cardiotrophin-1, ciliary neurotrophic factor, and human oncostatin M. The structure of the human LIF-R gene is similar to that of the mouse gene. The transmembrane receptor is encoded by 19 exons. Two distinct 5' non-coding exons are present, indicating the existence of alternative promoters. An extra-exon specific to the mouse soluble receptor contains a stop codon and polyadenylation signals in a B2 repetitive element. On the other hand, LIF-R mRNAs containing unspliced introns are abundantly present in human tissues. These intronic sequences introduce a termination codon before the transmembrane domain. Human choriocarcinoma cells expressing these mRNAs release soluble LIF-R. The cytoplasmic domain of LIF-R can generate the signals for growth arrest and differentiation of mouse myeloid leukemic cells when they are induced to form a homodimer of the cytoplasmic domain independently of gp130. Two membrane-distal tyrosines on the YXXQ motif of LIF-R are critical not only for STAT3 activation but also for growth arrest and macrophage differentiation of WEHI-3B D+ cells.