| First Author | Pike-Overzet K | Year | 2006 |
| Journal | Nature | Volume | 443 |
| Issue | 7109 | Pages | E5; discussion E6-7 |
| PubMed ID | 16988660 | Mgi Jnum | J:116806 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:3695061 | Doi | 10.1038/nature05218 |
| Citation | Pike-Overzet K, et al. (2006) Gene therapy: is IL2RG oncogenic in T-cell development?. Nature 443(7109):E5; discussion E6-7 |
| abstractText | The gene IL2RG encodes the gamma-chain of the interleukin-2 receptor and is mutated in patients with X-linked severe combined immune deficiency (X-SCID). Woods et al. report the development of thymus tumours in a mouse model of X-SCID after correction by lentiviral overexpression of IL2RG and claim that these were caused by IL2RG itself. Here we find that retroviral overexpression of IL2RG in human CD34+ cells has no effect on T-cell development, whereas overexpression of the T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) oncogene LMO2 leads to severe abnormalities. Retroviral expression of IL2RG may therefore not be directly oncogenic--rather, the restoration of normal signalling by the interleukin-7 receptor to X-SCID precursor cells allows progression of T-cell development to stages that are permissive for the pro-leukaemic effects of ectopic LMO2. |
