Induction of Erythroid-Specific Expression in Murine Erythroleukemia (MEL) Cell Lines

Murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cell lines are erythroid progenitor cells derived from the spleens of susceptible mice infected with the Friend virus complex 1 . These virally transformed cells are arrested at the proerythroblast stage of development and can be maintained in tissue culture indefinitely (2 ). Most MEL cell lines show a low (approx 1 %) level of spontaneous erythroid differentiation, which is dependent on the culture conditions as well as the cell line in question (2 –4 ). However, upon treatment with various chemical agents, MEL cells can be induced to undergo erythroid differentia- tion at much higher levels (30–100%). Among the most potent inducers of differentiation are polar-planar compounds (such as dimethyl sulfoxide (5 ) and hexamethylene bisacetamide (6 ), fatty acid salts (for example, sodium butyrate (7 ), retinoic acid and some of its derivatives (8 ) (for a comprehensive list of inducers, see ref. 9 ).