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A new Ph1-positive leukemic cell line (MC3) expressing the P210bcr/abl oncoprotein was established from a patient with CML in blast crisis. The MC3 cells showed the trilineage phenotype of myeloid, lymphoid (CD19) and megakaryocytoid lineages, and had a proliferative response to rhIL-1 and rhIL-3 in the serum-free culture. These results and the expression of CD34 indicated that the MC3 cells have characteristics of hematopoietic progenitor cells. Recently, it has been documented that alterations of the p53 gene in leukemic cells are frequently detected during the blast crisis of CML. The MC3 cells contained the altered p53 gene. In addition, the original leukemic cells showed the point-mutational activation of the N-ras gene and an additional chromosomal abnormality inv(3q), but the MC3 cells contained no such abnormalities, indicating that not all of the original leukemic cells had these abnormalities. Thus, the MC3 cell line may provide several insights into investigations of the blast crisis in CML as well as hematopoietic progenitor cells.
Okabe et al. (Sun,) studied this question.