title: Human cord blood conditioned medium enhances leukemia colony formation in vitro.
abstract: Childhood T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is one of the most common childhood cancers. Recently, we observed that pre-conditioning sub-lethally irradiated immunodeficient mice with human cord blood mononuclear cells facilitates in these mice high level engraftment of primary T-ALL cells obtained from patients. Here we report that human cord blood cells secrete a factor(s) which markedly enhances in vitro both colony number and burst size of the T-ALL clonogenic progenitors from patients. The enhancing activity does not correspond to IL-2, IL-15, nor to several other cytokines implicated in T cell proliferation/activation. Thus, it is possible cord blood may secrete an as yet unidentified factor(s) acting on leukemia clonogenic progenitors of T-ALL. Collectively, these studies should prove invaluable in addressing the growth properties of primary T-ALL cells from patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine, NX 3, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
authors.forename: L E
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: D P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Dialynas
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mackintosh
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000943:Antigens, Differentiation; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D016207:Cytokines / Q000097:blood; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D016130:Immunophenotyping; D015459:Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell / Q000473:pathology*; D051379:Mice; D016688:Mice, Inbred NOD; D016513:Mice, SCID; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D000943:Antigens, Differentiation; D017077:Culture Media, Conditioned; D016207:Cytokines