The recently identified protein tescalcin is known to be highly expressed in hematopoietic cells, but its function in these cells had not been determined.
In a new study, Konstantin Levay and Vladlen Slepak at the University of Miami now show that tescalcin has a central role in the in vitro differentiation of megakaryocytes, the cells responsible for producing platelets.
The expression of tescalcin was found to dramatically increase when a hematopoietic progenitor cell line was induced to differentiate into megakaryocytes and overexpression of tescalcin in this cell line induced the spontaneous initiation of megakaryocyte differentiation. Conversely knockdown of tescalin expression in this cell line and in primary hematopoietic progenitors inhibited the induction of megakaryocyte differentiation. Further analysis showed that tescalcin couples the ERK signaling cascade with the expression of Ets family transcription factors. This study therefore identifies a cellular and molecular function for tescalcin in terminal differentiation in the hematopioetic system.-Journal of Clinical Investigation
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