IGF-IR determines the fates of BCR/ABL leukemia

Jingjing Xie, Xiaoli Chen, Junke Zheng, Chunling Li, Satomi Stacy, Martin Holzenberger, Xuemei Hu, Cheng Cheng Zhang

BackgroundThe tyrosine kinase receptor insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-IR) contributes to the initiation and progression of many types of malignancies. We previously showed that IGF-2, which binds IGF-IR, is an extrinsic factor that supports the ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We also demonstrated that IGF-IR is not required for HSC activity in vivo.Methods and ResultsHere we investigated the role of IGF-IR in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) using the retroviral BCR/ABL transplantation mouse model. Existing antibodies against IGF-IR are not suitable for flow cytometry; therefore, we generated a fusion of the human IgG Fc fragment with mutant IGF-2 that can bind to IGF-IR. We used this fusion protein to evaluate mouse primary hematopoietic populations. Through transplantation assays with IGF-IR+ and IGF-IR¿ cells, we demonstrated that IGF-IR is expressed on all mouse HSCs. The expression of IGF-IR is much higher on CML cells than on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells. The depletion of IGF-IR expression in BCR/ABL+ cells led to the development of ALL (mostly T cell ALL) but not CML. Lack of IGF-IR resulted in decreased self-renewal of the BCR/ABL+ CML cells in the serial replating assay.ConclusionIGF-IR regulates the cell fate determination of BCR/ABL+ leukemia cells and supports the self-renewal of CML cells.