Interferon-alpha restores normal beta 1 integrin-mediated inhibition of hematopoietic progenitor proliferation by the marrow microenvironment in chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) progenitors show decreased adhesion to stroma and fibronectin (FN) through beta 1 integrin receptors. We have previously shown that interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) restores beta 1 integrin-mediated adhesion of CML progenitors to stroma. Because beta1 integrins transmit proliferation inhibitory signals from the microenvironment to normal hematopoietic progenitors, we hypothesized that decreased integrin-mediated adhesion of CML progenitors contributes to their continuous proliferation when in contact with stroma and that IFN-alpha treatment, by restoring integrin-mediated adhesion, also restores integrin-mediated microenvironmental inhibition of CML progenitor proliferation. We show here that, in contrast to normal colony-forming cells (CFC), the percentage of malignant CML CFC in S-phase was not significantly reduced following coculture with stromal layers. However, IFN-alpha treatment resulted in a significant reduction in the proliferation of CML CFC on coculture with stroma. This effect was not because of a direct antiproliferative effect of IFN-alpha on CML CFC because the proliferation of IFN-alpha treated CML CFC kept in suspension culture was not reduced. We examined the role of restored signaling through beta 1 integrin receptors in IFN-alpha induced inhibition of CML progenitors in two sets of experiment. In the first set of experiments, we demonstrated that proliferation of IFN-alpha-treated CML CFC, but not untreated CML CFC, was significantly reduced following coculture with 33/66-kD and 75-kD FN fragments, recognized by alpha 4 beta 1 and alpha 5 beta 1 integrins respectively. In a second set of experiments, we demonstrate that direct stimulation of integrin receptors by crosslinking with blocking antibodies to alpha 4, alpha 5, and beta 1 integrins and secondary goat antimouse antibodies resulted in significant reduction in proliferation of normal and IFN-alpha treated CML progenitors but not untreated CML CFC. These studies indicate that CML hematopoietic progenitors are unresponsive to beta 1-integrin mediated proliferation inhibition and that IFN-alpha not only restores beta 1 integrin-mediated adhesion but also beta1-mediated microenvironmental inhibition of CML progenitor proliferation. These observations may explain, at least in part, the therapeutic efficacy of IFN-alpha in CML.