The potential role of the homeobox gene, Hhex in haematopoietic progenitor expansion

Abstract

Background: The decision of an erythroid progenitor to proliferate or differentiate is regulated at the level of (i) transcription; (ii) recruitment of transcripts to polysomes for protein synthesis and (iii) signal transduction activating functional effectors. We utilized a factor sensitive erythroid progenitor cell model to study the gene expression profile of cells under proliferative signals. We have shown previously that translation control is an extremely important level of regulation that controls the balance between proliferation and differentiation of erythroid progenitors. This led us to investigate those transcripts that are shifted to polysomes in cells stimulated by erythropoietin (Epo) or stem cell factor (SCF).