Biologic characteristics of patients with hypocellular myelodysplastic syndromes.
Rates of proliferation and apoptosis as well as expression of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) and the number of macrophages were measured in bone marrow (BM) biopsies of 33 patients who presented with hypocellular (cellularity < 30%) myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Results showed that 2/3 of the patients had high apoptosis, high cytokine levels and large number of macrophages in their biopsies while 1/3 did not. Apoptosis and TNF-alpha levels were directly related (r = 0.583, P = 0.003, n = 24) as was apoptosis and the degree of anemia (P = 0.033, n = 18). A subgroup of patients with abnormalities of chromosomes 5 or 7 had higher platelets (P = 0.026) and higher apoptosis (P = 0.038) when compared with the rest of the group. Eight patients had no evidence of apoptosis and almost no detectable TNF-alpha in their biopsies. We conclude that within the hypocellular variant of MDS, there may be two distinct sub-groups of patients, one who present with high cytokine-mediated intramedullary apoptosis and the other who may be better characterized as having a stem-cell failure defect since they showed no evidence of apoptosis.
Goyal
R
R
Rush Cancer Institute, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
Qawi
H
H
Ali
I
I
Dar
S
S
Mundle
S
S
Shetty
V
V
Mativi
Y
Y
Allampallam
K
K
Lisak
L
L
Loew
J
J
Venugopal
P
P
Gezer
S
S
Robin
E
E
Rifkin
S
S
Raza
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017209:Apoptosis; D016207:Cytokines / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D020287:In Situ Nick-End Labeling; D007621:Karyotyping; D008264:Macrophages / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D016196:S Phase
D016207:Cytokines