Stage-specific expression of intracisternal A-particle sequences in murine myelomonocytic leukemia cell lines and normal myelomonocytic differentiation.

The levels of intracisternal A-particle (IAP) mRNA were analyzed in a variety of myelomonocytic leukemia cell lines, peritoneally derived macrophages, and normal hemopoietic progenitors induced to differentiate. In both normal and leukemic cells, the highest level of IAP message was found in cells at an intermediate stage of myelomonocytic differentiation, namely, the promyelomonocyte. These results indicate that IAP sequence transcription is regulated differentially during myelomonocytic cell development and that in general, the expression pattern is preserved in leukemic cell lines in vitro. In addition, Northern (RNA) analysis detected only type I IAP transcripts as the major IAP message and the expressed IAP subtypes varied in certain cell lines. This is the first comprehensive study of IAP expression in the myelomonocytic lineage and provides a useful system to study the biology of IAPs.