Maintenance of myeloid leukemic cells in the adherent layers of long-term bone marrow cultures.
In order to determine the culture characteristics of human leukemic cells in long-term bone marrow cultures (LTBMC), we cultured three specimens from three patients with acute non-lymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) at diagnosis or during relapse. The kinetics of granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming cell (CFU-C) generation in non-adherent cell fractions were compared with the kinetics of CFU-C generation by 16 control specimens. In addition, the adherent cells of the three ANLL specimens were cytogenetically characterized and the karyotypes were compared with those of corresponding fresh specimens. Two of the three ANLL specimens showed a greater decline in the number of CFU-C by weekly CFU-C assay of non-adherent fractions than did the control specimens at the corresponding week of culture. At the end of LTBMC, these two specimens contained karyotypically identifiable leukemic cells in the adherent layers. In contrast, one of the three specimens generated no CFU-C during the first four weeks of culture, but CFU-C were generated between weeks 5 and 9 with a peak at week 8. This specimen's adherent layers contained no metaphases identifiable as leukemic cells, even although the fresh sample before culture had yielded abnormal metaphases in 100% of the cells examined. This biological heterogeneity of ANLL leukemic cells may be significant in understanding the marked variability in the clinical courses of ANLL patients. A large prospective study that incorporates LTBMC would be of value in determining the clinical correlations.
Shibata
T
T
Inoue
S
S
Gohle
N
N
Karanes
C
C
D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology*; D002452:Cell Count; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D015470:Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*; D008875:Middle Aged