Drosophila forkhead homologues are expressed in CD34+HLA-DR^- primitive human hematopoietic progenitors

The Forkhead gene (FKH) regulates morphogenesis in Drosophila. It is the prototype of a new family of transcriptional activators. We used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to analyze the expression pattern of this new transcriptional regulatory gene family in primitive hematopoeitic progenitors. Partially degenerate oligonucleotides to two conserved amino acid sequences of this family were used to prime a PCR amplification of cDNA synthesized from CD34+HLA-DR^- hematopoietic cells. Known and novel FKH genes were found to be expressed in these cells.