LOW NATURAL-KILLER CELL-ACTIVITY IN THE BONE-MARROW OF HEALTHY DONORS WITH NORMAL KILLER CELL-ACTIVITY IN THE PERIPHERAL-BLOOD

  • 1 January 1984
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 12  (8) , 629-632
Abstract
The natural killer (NK) cell activity was studied in peripheral blood and in bone marrow of 9 normal donors. It was found that Ficoll-Hypaque (FH)-separated cells from the bone marrow collected in small (1 ml) aliquots had very low NK activity compared with normal activity in the peripheral blood of the same donor (mean .+-. SD: 4.2% .+-. 2.5% vs. 25.1% .+-. 15%, P < 0.01). This difference was maintained for cells bearing receptors for sheep erythrocytes (E+) in both tissues (4.3% .+-. 2.37% vs. 15% .+-. 12.6%, P < 0.01) or E- cells (2.5% .+-. 2.86% vs. 20.4% .+-. 19.5%, P < 0.01). In bone marrow cells with Fc receptors for IgG (Fc.gamma.+) neither E+ nor E- had significant NK activity, in contrast to the peripheral blood, where significant NK cell activity was detectable in the Fc.gamma.+ cells, either E+ or E- (1.9% .+-. 1.2% and 1.3% .+-. 1.4% vs. 16.1% .+-. 10.3% and 12.8% .+-. 7.4%, respectively, P < 0.01 for both). Evidently, bone marrow obtained with a low degree of blood contamination from normal donors has very low NK activity with no significant increase in any of the several fractions tested.