Vincristine-induced apoptosis in vivo in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).
We conducted a study to demonstrate vincristine-induced apoptosis in vivo in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). In five children, apoptosis was detected by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP-digoxigenin nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay in blood samples collected during an up-front window study of vincristine monotherapy. In one patient, we found a striking increase of apoptotic cells from 2% (SEM 0.6) before to 40.7% (SEM 2.9) 3 h after vincristine injection. In the other patients, the maximum increase ranged from 0.8% to 4.3%. Wilcoxon matched pairs analysis of all patients confirmed that vincristine induces apoptosis in vivo in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in childhood ALL (P = 0.043).
Groninger
E
E
Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. e.groninger@bkk.azg.nl
de Graaf
S S
SS
Meeuwsen-de Boer
G J
GJ
Sluiter
W J
WJ
Poppema
S
S
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D020287:In Situ Nick-End Labeling / Q000379:methods; D007223:Infant; D019169:Jurkat Cells; D015459:Leukemia-Lymphoma, Adult T-Cell / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000187:drug effects*; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D054198:Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000276:immunology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014750:Vincristine / Q000627:therapeutic use*
D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; D014750:Vincristine