Growth of clonogenic myeloblastic leukemic cells in the presence of human
recombinant erythropoietin in addition to various human recombinant
hematopoietic growth factors
Y Asano, S Okamura, T Shibuya, M Harada and Y Niho
First Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu
University, Japan.
The effects of human recombinant erythropoietin (rEpo) in the presence of
other stimulators on the growth of clonogenic leukemic blast cells from ten
Japanese patients with acute myeloblastic leukemia were studied with an in
vitro leukemic blast colony assay in methylcellulose culture. With the
addition of rEpo alone, no leukemic blast colony formation was stimulated
in any of the cases examined. However, when rEpo and phytohemagglutinin
lymphocyte-conditioned medium (PHA-LCM) were added to the culture
simultaneously, in contrast to results with PHA-LCM alone, the number of
leukemic blast colonies formed was significantly increased in two of the
ten cases (P less than .01). These two cases were classified as M1
according to the French-American- British (FAB) classification. This
enhancing effect of rEpo was observed with human recombinant
granulocyte/macrophage colony- stimulating factor (rGM-CSF) or human
recombinant interleukin-3 (rIL-3) but was not observed with human
recombinant granulocyte CSF (rGCSF).
Volume 72,
Issue 5,
pp. 1682-1686,
11/01/1988
Copyright © 1988 by The American Society of Hematology