Abstract
Congenital amegakaryocytic thrombocytopenia (CAMT) is a rare disorder that presents with severe thrombocytopenia and absence of megakaryocytes in the bone marrow. The disease may develop into bone marrow aplasia. In vitro, CD34-positive hematopoietic progenitor cells from CAMT patients did not show any megakaryocyte formation in a Tpo-driven expansion culture. We and others found genetic defects in the gene encoding the Tpo receptor, c-mpl (Van den Oudenrijn et al., Br J Haematol.2002, 117: 390–398 and Ballmaier et al., Ann N Y Acad Sci.2003, 996: 17–25). In our patients, we found four mutations that predicted amino-acid substitutions, of which three in the extracellular domain; Arg102Pro, Pro136His and Arg257Cys, and one in the intracellular signaling domain (Pro635Leu), which may result in either defective Tpo-binding and/or signaling. To investigate this, we transfected full-length Mpl (wt and mutants) into the erythroleukemic cell line K562 and truncated Mpl (encompassing the extracellular domain; wt and mutants) into Baby Hamster Kidney (BHK) cells. In the K562 cells, the mRNA level (RQ-PCR) of the Pro136His mutant was severely decreased compared to the wt transfectant, while the mRNA level of the other mutants was comparable to that of wt. On Western blot, wt Mpl migrated as two, presumably differently glycosylated, bands of 75 kD and 72 kD. The mutants showed an altered migration pattern, which might result from differences in glycosylation. With the Pro635Leu mutant lower signals were obtained when equal amounts of total protein were loaded. Since the Mpl mRNA level was comparable to that of wt, this suggests a higher level of protein degradation. Upon transfection of the Arg102Pro and the Arg257Cys mutants in BHK cells, we observed that these mutants did not gain endo-H resistency, which suggests an aberrant processing of these mutant Mpls through the Golgi apparatus and retention in the ER. However, in cell fractionation experiments with surface-biotinylated K562 cells, biotinylated wt Mpl and mutant Mpl (except Pro136His) could be detected. Apparently, in K562 cells, the amino-acid substitutions do not impair membrane expression completely. To examine whether the mutant receptors were still able to signal after Tpo incubation, K562 cells were serum-starved and subsequently stimulated with 50 ng/ml rhTpo for 5 to 30 minutes. All mutants, including Pro136His, showed increased ERK phosphorylation after 5 minutes. To summarize, the Pro136His mutant is hardly expressed in the K562 expression model, presumably because of instability of the mRNA, but is still able to induce signaling. In contrast to the results obtained in the BHK model, the Arg102Pro and Arg257Cys mutants, showed cell-surface expression in the K562 cell line. The obtained cell-surface expression in the K562 model may have been significantly increased compared to the in vivo situation on hematopoietic stem cells, because of artificially induced efficient expression. Finally, with a super-physiological concentration of rhTpo, we obtained evidence that all Mpl mutants were able to signal upon Tpo binding. Whether impaired signaling by the Mpl mutants in the presence of physiological levels of Tpo may contribute to the development of CAMT, will be investigated.
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