Stathmin Prevents the Transition from a Normal to an Endomitotic Cell Cycle during Megakaryocytic Differentiation

Physiological polyploidy is a characteristic of several cell types including themegakaryocytes (MK) that give rise to circulating blood platelets. MK achieve polyploidy byswitching from a normal to an endomitotic cell cycle characterized by the absence of late mitoticstages. During an endomitotic cycle, the cells enter into mitosis and proceed normally throughmetaphase and early anaphase. However, late anaphase, telophase and cytokinesis are aborted. Thisabortive mitosis is associated with atypical multipolar mitotic spindles and limited chromosomesegregation. Stathmin is a microtubule-depolymerizing protein that is important for the regulation ofthe mitotic spindle and interfering with its expression disrupts the normal mitotic spindle and leadsto aberrant mitotic exit. As cells enter mitosis, the microtubule depolymerizing-activity of stathminis switched-off, allowing microtubules to polymerize and assemble into a mitotic spindle.Reactivation of stathmin in the later stages of mitosis is necessary for the disassembly of the mitoticspindle and the exit from mitosis. Previous studies had shown that stathmin expression isdownregulated as MK become polyploid and inhibition of its expression in K562 cells increasestheir propensity to become polyploid. In this report, we describe our studies of the mechanism bywhich stathmin plays its role in MK polyploidization. We show that stathmin overexpressionprevents the transition from a mitotic cycle to an endomitotic cycle as determined by a decrease inthe number of multipolar mitotic spindles. These observations support a model in whichdownregulation of stathmin expression in megakaryocytes and other polyploid cells may be acritically important factor in endomitosis and polyploidy.