Overexpression of prothymosin α accelerates proliferation and retards differentiation in HL-60 cells

Abstract

Prothymosin α (ProTα) is an acidic nuclear protein the expression of which is related to the proliferation and differentiation processes in mammalian cells. In the present study we have stably transfected HL-60 cells, a biological system that allows the study of both proliferation and differentiation, with recombinant vectors encoding sense and antisense ProTα mRNA. In the HL-60 cell clones overexpressing ProTα we observed an acceleration in the growth rate, whereas expression of the antisense orientation showed the opposite effect. Moreover, cell-cycle analysis demonstrated that the G1-phase was shortened in the cells expressing the sense construct. Before studying how ProTα affects differentiation, we showed that the down-regulation of ProTα gene during differentiation occurs in all mammalian cell lines (HL-60, K562, U937, MEL C88, N2A and PC12) analysed. The biological effect evoked by the induction of the ProTα sense vector was the retardation of cell differentiation, although expression of the antisense construct showed no effect on differentiation. In conclusion, our findings provide evidence that ProTα is directly implicated in cellular proliferation and that the maintenance of high levels of ProTα inside HL-60 cells is incompatible with their ability to differentiate.