Lyn Kinase Activity Is Required for Akt Mediated Erythroleukemia Cell Differentiation

Erythroleukemia (M6 subtype of Acute Myeloid Leukaemia) is uncommon but has a poor prognosis, with reports of successful differentiation therapy using erythropoietin (Epo). Signaling through the Epo-receptor, which involves JAK2 and Lyn tyrosine kinases, controls red blood cell progenitor development. We have highlighted the importance of Lyn for regulating downstream Akt, and feed-back inhibitory signaling of the Epo-receptor through analysis of Lyn^-/-, Lyn^up/up (hyperactive Lyn) and Cbp^-/- (Csk-binding protein, a negative regulator of Lyn) erythroid cells. However, the importance of maintaining Lyn activity as opposed to Lyn protein for erythroid cell development and signaling, has not been delineated. To address this, we generated Lyn^KD/KD mice (expressing a kinase dead K275M mutant Lyn), and analysed their erythroid compartment and signaling in immortalized erythroid progenitors. We show that Lyn^KD/KD mice display splenic extramedullary erythropoiesis and have evidence of elevate bone marrow erythropoiesis, similar to Lyn^-/- mice but with a less severe phenotype. Immortalized erythroid progenitors from Lyn^KD/KD mice show impaired Epo-induced differentiation and a greater dependence on Epo for viability, but unaltered proliferation, compared to wild-type cells. Epo-induced signaling of Lyn^KD/KD cells showed enhanced pJAK2/pSTAT5, reduced pAkt/pGAB2, and substantially reduced ALAS-e levels, compared to wild-type cells. Importantly, elevating Akt signaling in Lyn^KD/KD cells by addition of phosphatase inhibitors (okadaic acid or Calyculin A), or via expression of active Akt, restored their differentiation capacity (and ALAS-e levels) and reduced their dependence on Epo for viability. We have unveiled that Lyn kinase activity, and not just its expression, is required for correct signaling of Akt to GATA-1 to maintain ALAS-e expression in erythroid cells, enabling hemoglobin production and viability during differentiation.