Haematopoietic stem cell lines activate novel enhancer-dependent expression of reporter DNA immediately after transfection by mechanisms involving interleukin 3 and protein kinase C.

Approaches to analysing gene regulation in haematopoietic stem cells are limited by their low concentration and rapid cell death outside of a trophic marrow environment. We have used interleukin 3 (IL3)-dependent cell lines as stem-cell models to investigate gene regulation during signal transduction by growth factors. We report that expression of the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyl transferase reporter gene linked via the weak thymidine kinase promoter to known upstream enhancer regions required for expression of the proliferation-dependent proto-oncogene c-fos occurs almost immediately (within 2 h) after transfection. Expression is stimulated by IL3 or activation of protein kinase C. Our findings indicate that IL3-dependent cell lines possess an extremely rapid transcription mechanism for introduced DNA, which if also present in normal cells may be usefully used to analyse gene regulation during signal transduction leading to growth and differentiation by haematopoietic growth factors.