Bcr-Abl Efficiently Induces a Myeloproliferative Disease and Production of Excess Interleukin-3 and Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor in Mice: A Novel Model for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia

The bcr-abl oncogene plays a critical role in causing chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Effective laboratory animal models of CML are needed to study the molecular mechanisms by which the bcr-abl oncogene acts in the disease progression of CML. We used a murine stem cell retroviral vector (MSCV) to transduce the bcr-abl/p210 oncogene into mouse bone marrow cells and found that expression of Bcr-Abl/p210 induced a myeloproliferative disorder that resembled the chronic phase of human CML in 100% of bone marrow transplanted mice in about 3 weeks. This CML-like disease was readily transplanted to secondary recipient mice. Multiple clones of infected cells were expanded in the primary recipients, but the leukemia was primarily monoclonal in the secondary recipient mice. Mutation analysis demonstrated that the protein tyrosine kinase activity of Bcr-Abl/p210 was essential for its leukemogenic potential in vivo. Interestingly, we found that the leukemic cells expressed excess interleukin-3 (IL-3) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in the diseased mice. These studies demonstrate that expression of Bcr-Abl can induce a CML-like leukemia in mice much more efficiently and reproducibly than in previously reported mouse CML models, probably due to efficient expression in the correct target cell(s). Our first use of this model for analysis of the molecular mechanisms involved in CML raises the possibility that excess expression of hematopoietic growth factors such as IL-3 and GM-CSF may contribute to the clinical phenotype of CML.