Similarities in long‐term cultures of blood and bone marrow from patients with acute myelogenous leukemia

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Abstract
Dexter‐type long‐term cultures (LTC) Were initiated with peripheral blood (PB) and/or bone marrow cells from 11 patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and 2 with myelodysplastic syndrome in blastic transformation. Marrow and PB cells from normal subjects served as controls. Assessment of nucleated cells and clonogenic progenitors in the adherent and nonadherent fractions of LTC revealed active hemopoiesis for >5 wks in 4 of 8 cultures of AML blood, and 4 of 7 of AML marrow. The morphology and kinetics of nucleated cells and progenitors with putative normal (granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐forming units or CFU‐gm), and abnormal (blast) phenotype in LTC from AML blood were similar to those from AML marrow, and adherent cells positive for ccollagen 1 and III and vimentnin were found in both types of LTC. Growt of CFU‐gm coclonies ceased by wk 5‐8 in AML cultures, significantly earlier than in LTC of normal marrow cells (survival of > 10 wks), which may indicate derivation of the CFU‐gm from a transformed clone row LTCs, growth of abnormal (blast) colonies continued until Wk 4‐6. This study demonstratess certain similarities of morphology and function between LTC of AML blood adn AML marrow cells. LTC may provide a useful model for further analysis of circulating primitive hemopoietic progenitor cells in leukmic states.