Autocrine regulation of terminal differentiation by interleukin-6 in the pluripotent KU812 cell line

The human KU812 leukemic cell line is a model for studying cell commitment towards different hematopoietic lineages. Indeed, this cell line is characterized by both a capacity for self-renewal and the ability to differentiate spontaneously along erythroid and basophilic cell lineages. In this study we show that interleukin-6 (IL-6) and its specific receptor (IL-6-R) are spontaneously expressed in the human KU812 cell line. Addition of antibody against IL-6 weakly inhibited its cell proliferation (20 to 30%) suggesting that the endogenous production of IL-6 was partially responsible for the growth of the cell line. In contrast, the spontaneous terminal differentiation of this cell line towards the erythroid and basophilic lineages was inhibited by an antibody against IL-6 and this effect was reversed by addition of recombinant human IL-6 (rIL-6). These results suggest that IL-6 is involved more in differentiation than in the proliferation of KU812 cells. After several passages, KU812 cells lose their capacity to differentiate spontaneously. In these cells, the IL-6-R was no more detectable. We therefore suggest that this loss of spontaneous differentiation is associated with an interruption of the IL-6 autocrine loop.