STIMULATION OF HUMAN LYMPHOCYTES INVITRO BY LEUKOCYTES FROM PATIENTS WITH UNTREATED ACUTE MYELOID-LEUKEMIA

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  • 1 January 1977
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 29  (2) , 229-239
Abstract
Leukocytes from 16 untreated acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients were tested for their ability to stimulate lymphocytes from each of 12 normal donors. Of 192 tests between the stimulating AML leukocytes and responding lymphocytes, 42% resulted in positive lymphocyte stimulation; this was in contrast to 1-way mixed lymphocyte culture (MLC) responses, involving the same lymphocyte donors, which were 100% positive. Lack of stimulation by AML leukocytes was significantly associated, in 11% of the tests, with .gtoreq. 2 HL-A-A and/or-B antigens common to the responding lymphocyte and stimulating AML leukocyte. The most stimulatory of the AML leukocytes were obtained from 2 high-leukocyte-count acute myelomonocytic leukemia patients. The stimulatory capacity of AML leukocytes did not correlate with the clinical fate of the cell donor. The presence of contaminating lymphocytes from the patient in the AML leukocyte samples did not account for differences in stimulatory capacity between AML leukocytes. Limited in vitro viability of AML leukocytes was ruled out as a factor causing poor lymphocyte stimulation. Kinetic studies showed that AML leukocytes induce an MLC-type response or no response at all. Differences in response kinetics were observed between 2 normal and 2 remission AML patients, the latter receiving active immunotherapy. Pronase treatment of AML leukocytes failed to increase their stimulatory capacity, but distilled H2O markedly reduced it. The significance of results is discussed in relation to lymphocyte stimulation by other types of allogeneic cell and in the context of active immunotherapy of AML.