title: Serum-free liquid marrow culture in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia: a potential application to purge marrow for autologous transplantation.
abstract: We have previously established a serum-free (SF) culture medium, which supports normal haemopoietic progenitor cell growth for at least 4 weeks as does conventional serum dependent (SD) medium. In the present study, we investigated the efficacy of such a defined SF liquid medium which sustained in vitro residual normal haemopoietic proliferation of marrow derived from ALL patients and which was detrimental for the leukaemic population. Evidence for a potential selective effect of SF culture was obtained by a leukaemic progenitor cell assay (ALL-CFU) and the detection of the bcr/abl translocation by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In 13 experiments including 12 patients, morphological blast cells and ALL-CFU were dramatically reduced within 3 weeks of incubation in both SF and SD cultures. Likewise, in 5/5 experiments in SD and 2/5 experiments in SF conditions, leukaemic cells expressing the bcr/abl fusion gene disappeared within 3-4 weeks. In contrast, the absolute numbers of supernatant cells harvested weekly from SF and SD cultures were similar. No difference in CFU-GM production was detected for the two culture systems. Erythropoiesis in SF medium exhibited a slower decline than that found in SD. These results indicate that liquid marrow culture may selectively deplete leukaemic lymphoblastic cells and enable repopulation by residual normal haemopoietic cells. This technique may be useful to purge leukaemic cells for clinical autologous bone marrow transplantation in patients with ALL.
authors.affiliation: Formation associée Claude Bernard sur les Greffes de cellules souches hématopoiétiques, CHU Saint Antoine, Paris, France.
authors.forename: W M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Da
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Douay
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Barbu
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fabrega
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Allieri
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Drouet
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Deloux
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Giarratana
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ozsahin
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Oszahin
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: van den Akker
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vanhaeke
authors.forename: N C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Gorin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003470:Culture Media; D005260:Female; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis; D014178:Translocation, Genetic; D014182:Transplantation, Autologous; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D003470:Culture Media; D012334:RNA, Neoplasm