Submitted November 6, 2007
Accepted January 22, 2008
Survivin overexpression alone does not alter megakaryocyte ploidy nor interfere with erythroid/megakaryocytic lineage development in transgenic mice
Donald J. McCrann, Todd Yezefski, Hao G. Nguyen, Nicholas Papadantonakis, Hui Liu, Qiang Wen, John D. Crispino, and Katya Ravid*
Department of Biochemistry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States
Division of Hematology/Oncology; Department of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, United States
* Corresponding author; email: ravid{at}biochem.bumc.bu.edu.
The level of survivin was reported to be scarce in mouse megakaryocytes (MKs) compared to erythroid cells. Considering this finding and previously reported in vitro data showing decreased MK ploidy upon retroviral-mediated overexpression of survivin, we sought to examine whether ectopic survivin expression in the MK lineage might alter ploidy level in vivo. Here we report the generation of two tissue specific hematopoietic transgenic mouse models, one expressing survivin in both the erythroid and MK lineages and the other expressing survivin solely in the MK lineage. Survivin protein overexpression was confirmed in MKs and erythrocytes. Surprisingly, analysis of both transgenic mouse lines showed no detectable changes in MK number, ploidy level, and platelet and erythrocyte counts, as compared to control mice. We conclude that elevated survivin expression does not alter MK/erythroid lineage development and that elevated survivin, alone does not interfere with MK ploidy in vivo.
