A BCR-ABL(p190) fusion gene made by homologous recombination causes B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias in chimeric mice with independence of the endogenous bcr product.

BCR-ABL(p190) oncogene is the result of a reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 and is associated with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) in humans. Current models expressing the BCR-ABL(p190) chimeric gene fail to consistently reproduce the phenotype with which the fusion gene is associated in human pathology, mainly due to the difficulty of being expressed in the appropriate cell type in vivo. We have used here homologous recombination in ES cells to create an in-frame fusion of BCR-ABL(p190) that mimics the consequences of the human chromosomal translocation by fusion of BCR-ABL coding sequences into the bcr endogenous gene. The chimeric mice generated with the mutant embryonic stem cells systematically develop B-ALL. Using these chimeric mice, we further show that BCR-ABL oncogene does not require the endogenous bcr product in leukemogenesis. Our results show that BCR-ABL(p190) chimeric mice are a new model to study the biology of the BCR-ABL oncogene and indicate the efficacy of this strategy for studying the role of specific chromosome abnormalities in tumor development.