PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Effects of THAP11 on erythroid differentiation and megakaryocytic differentiation of K562 cells.

  • Xiang-Zhen Kong,
  • Rong-Hua Yin,
  • Hong-Mei Ning,
  • Wei-Wei Zheng,
  • Xiao-Ming Dong,
  • Yang Yang,
  • Fei-Fei Xu,
  • Jian-Jie Li,
  • Yi-Qun Zhan,
  • Miao Yu,
  • Chang-Hui Ge,
  • Jian-Hong Zhang,
  • Hui Chen,
  • Chang-Yan Li,
  • Xiao-Ming Yang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091557
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 3
p. e91557

Abstract

Read online

Hematopoiesis is a complex process regulated by sets of transcription factors in a stage-specific and context-dependent manner. THAP11 is a transcription factor involved in cell growth, ES cell pluripotency, and embryogenesis. Here we showed that THAP11 was down-regulated during erythroid differentiation but up-regulated during megakaryocytic differentiation of cord blood CD34+ cells. Overexpression of THAP11 in K562 cells inhibited the erythroid differentiation induced by hemin with decreased numbers of benzidine-positive cells and decreased mRNA levels of α-globin (HBA) and glycophorin A (GPA), and knockdown of THAP11 enhanced the erythroid differentiation. Conversely, THAP11 overexpression accelerated the megakaryocytic differentiation induced by phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) with increased percentage of CD41+ cells, increased numbers of 4N cells, and elevated CD61 mRNA levels, and THAP11 knockdown attenuated the megakaryocytic differentiation. The expression levels of transcription factors such as c-Myc, c-Myb, GATA-2, and Fli1 were changed by THAP11 overexpression. In this way, our results suggested that THAP11 reversibly regulated erythroid and megakaryocytic differentiation.