The LIF response element of the alpha 2 macroglobulin gene confers LIF-induced transcriptional activation in embryonal stem cells.

Leukaemia Inhibitory Factor (LIF), an interleukin 6 (IL-6)-type cytokine, is an essential growth factor for murine embryonal stem cells. The LIF-receptor was known in these cells, but the cell-internal part of the signal cascade and the transcription factors through which LIF controls its growth-promoting target genes in embryonal stem cells, had not been identified. This study shows that the type II IL-6-response element of the rat alpha 2 macroglobulin (alpha 2M) gene, which mediates IL-6- and LIF-responses in hepatic cells, also functioned as a LIF-response element (LIF-RE) in ES1 embryonal stem cells and P19 embryonal carcinoma cells. It conferred transcriptional activation by LIF of transfected reporter constructs in these cells. A characteristic DNA-binding activity interacting with this LIF-RE was induced by treatment of these cells with LIF. The complex between this activity and the LIF-RE had identical electrophoretic mobility, sequence-specificity and kinetics of induction as the complex with the corresponding LIF-response factor (LIF-RF) from hepatic cells. The transcription factor STAT3 was part of this complex, as shown by its reactivity with anti-STAT3 antibodies. Withdrawal of LIF from ES1 cells caused the induction of differentiation and the disappearance of this DNA-binding activity. Simultaneously, the surface density of high-affinity LIF receptors was reduced approximately 10-fold.