Cellular maturation in human preleukemia
HP Koeffler and DW Golde
Bone marrow cells from three preleukemic patients with prominent marrow
karyotypic abnormalities were studied in liquid culture to determine if the
neoplastic clones were capable of maturation. Parallel cytogenetic and
cytologic studies were performed in sequentially harvested bone marrow
cultures. Maturation, albeit delayed, occurred in cultures from all three
patients. By 14 days of culture in vitro, morphologic, cytochemical, and
functional evidence of maturation was observed in about 70% of the cells.
By day 21, 85% of the cells were mature by these criteria. All but 2 of 249
metaphases from the cultured cells contained the cytogenetic abnormality of
the neoplastic clone. We conclude that some preleukemic cells identified by
a chromosomal abnormality can mature in vitro. Preleukemia may be viewed as
a syndrome of "early leukemia" in which the neoplastic clone is established
and manifested functionally as ineffective hematopoiesis. Hematopoietic
cell differentiation becomes progressively abnormal with termination in the
nearly complete maturational block characteristic of acute myelogenous
leukemia.
Volume 52,
Issue 2,
pp. 355-361,
08/01/1978
Copyright © 1978 by The American Society of Hematology
