S. Constantino et al., The ecdysone inducible gene expression system: unexpected effects of muristerone A and ponasterone A on cytokine signaling in mammalian cells, EUR CYTOKIN, 12(2), 2001, pp. 365-367
Inducible gene expression systems in mammalian cells have been shown to be
valuable processes to study the specific function of a protein in different
iation, proliferation or survival/apoptosis. Usually, these systems use as
inducible reagents, compounds that are thought to be neutral and devoid of
physiological or biologically undesirable effects in mammalian cells, We re
cently used the ecdysone inducible gene expression system in hematopoietic
cells and found that the two inducer analogs of ecdysone, muristerone A and
ponasterone A, altered the signaling pathways induced by IL-3 in the pro-B
cell-line, Ba/F3, Indeed, we showed that these two analogs potentiate the
IL-3-dependent activation of the PI 3-kinase/Akt pathway, which could ultim
ately interfere with the growth, and/or survival of these cells.