title: Defective natural killer cell activity and deficient production of interferon-gamma in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
abstract: Natural killer (NK) cell activity, OK-432-augmented-NK cell activity, concentrations of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) in the culture supernatants of lymphocytes stimulated with OK-432, and subsets of NK cells and memory T cells were analyzed in 42 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) receiving maintenance chemotherapy. Natural killer and augmented-NK cell activities, and concentrations of IFN-gamma in the supernatants of cultured lymphocytes, were significantly lower in the patients with ALL than in age-matched control children. Among the NK cell subsets, proportions of CD57+ cells in the patients with ALL were significantly higher than in the controls, and proportions of a memory T cell subset (CD4+ CD29+ T cells) in the patients were also significantly higher than in the controls. These results suggest that the function of NK cells and memory T cells that are considered as IFN-gamma producing cells, may be defective in ALL, and that CD57+ cells and CD4+ CD29+ cells may be resistant to or recover rapidly from suppression by cytotoxic chemotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Kochi Medical School, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wakiguchi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hisakawa
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fujieda
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kurashige
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology*; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000378:metabolism; D010844:Picibanil / Q000494:pharmacology; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D010844:Picibanil; D007371:Interferon-gamma