Effect of WNT expression on the distribution of blood cell phenotypes exhibited by QCE6 cells.
The level of WNT expression alters the distribution of blood cell phenotypes exhibited by QCE6 cells. Parental QCE6 cells and stably transfected QCE6 sublines were incubated in MeC (5 × 104cells per culture) for 6 days prior to colony counting. Colonies were scored as described in the legend to Figure 2, except that an additional colony category was tallied. For the bone marrow cultures reported in Figure 2, monocyte phenotypes were detected only in cultures that contained macrophages. Here, colonies that contained monocytes but no macrophages were observed. After tabulation of the different blood colony types for each culture, mixed and individual lineage colonies were added to determine the proportion of colonies that contained a given blood cell phenotype. The results are presented as the mean values per culture, with the error bars corresponding to the SD. Total numbers of MeC colonies counted from duplicate cultures in 2 independent experiments were 344 colonies for the parental QCE6 (░), 271 colonies for WNT11αs (▪), 405 colonies for WNT11ox/3 (▤), and 401 colonies for WNT5a-transfected QCE6 (WNT5a/QCE6, ■). The phenotypic groups indicated on the x-axis are colonies that contained RBCs (Ery), macrophages plus monocytes (Mac + Mono), monocytes without macrophages (Mono), and granulocytes (Gr). Note that WNT11αs cells did not yield any erythroid lineage cells, and both WNT11ox/3 and WNT5a/QCE6 cells displayed very few macrophages. It should also be noted that, although not indicated in this graph, WNT11αs Mac + Mono colonies consisted primarily of macrophages, and the WNT11ox/3 and WNT5a/QCE6 Mac + Mono colonies contained far higher numbers of monocytes than macrophages.
