title: Bone marrow cells adopt the phenotype of other cells by spontaneous cell fusion.
abstract: Recent studies have demonstrated that transplanted bone marrow cells can turn into unexpected lineages including myocytes, hepatocytes, neurons and many others. A potential problem, however, is that reports discussing such 'transdifferentiation' in vivo tend to conclude donor origin of transdifferentiated cells on the basis of the existence of donor-specific genes such as Y-chromosome markers. Here we demonstrate that mouse bone marrow cells can fuse spontaneously with embryonic stem cells in culture in vitro that contains interleukin-3. Moreover, spontaneously fused bone marrow cells can subsequently adopt the phenotype of the recipient cells, which, without detailed genetic analysis, might be interpreted as 'dedifferentiation' or transdifferentiation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA. terada@pathology.ufl.edu
authors.forename: Naohiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Terada
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hamazaki
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oka
authors.forename: Masanori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hoki
authors.forename: Diana M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Mastalerz
authors.forename: Yuka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: Edwin M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Morel
authors.forename: Bryon E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Petersen
authors.forename: Edward W
authors.initials: EW
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000943:Antigens, Differentiation; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002459:Cell Fusion; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004622:Embryo, Mammalian / Q000166:cytology; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D007377:Interleukin-3 / Q000494:pharmacology; D007621:Karyotyping; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D010641:Phenotype; D011003:Ploidies; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*
chemical_list: D000943:Antigens, Differentiation; D005819:Genetic Markers; D007377:Interleukin-3; D008164:Luminescent Proteins; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins