Background:
The Polycomb-group gene Bmi-1 is known to be a molecular regulator of self-renewal of normal and leukemic stem cells and be involved in various aspects of cellular proliferation, differentiation, and survival.
Methods:
This study evaluated the effects of overexpression of Bmi-1 on human cord blood CD34+ cells. Bmi-1 was introduced into CD34+ cells through lentivirus transduction. Bmi-1 expressing CD34+ cells were applied to colony forming assay, stromal co-culture, and cytokine-stimulatied culture.
Results:
Ectopic expression of Bmi-1 resulted in the increased number of erythroid colonies in primary and secondary colony forming assay in an erythropoietin dependent manner. In stromal co-culture, Bmi-1-expressing postnatal hematopoietic stem cells seemed to lose the ability of self-renewal, as determined by week 5 cobblestone area-forming cell assay and by week 5 secondary colony assay. In cytokine-stimulated suspension culture of Bmi-1-transduced CD34+ cells, we observed increased erythropoiesis marked by Glycophorin A expression.
Conclusion:
Our data suggest that ectopic expression of Bmi-1 in human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells may result in the differentiation to the erythroid lineage rather than promoting self-renewal.

Keywords: Bmi-1, Erythroid differentiation, CD34+ cell