Cytokine network regulating the growth of leukemic cells.

1992 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 03671180
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Hematology
• Research Institution: Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Associate Professer
• Principal Investigator: NARA Nobuo Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Faculty of Medicine, Associate Professor, 医学部, 助教授 (00142258)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): MURAKAMI Nomi Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Faculty of Medicine, Research Associate, 医学部, 助手 (50143582)
• Project Period (FY): 1991 – 1992
• Keywords: Acute Myelocytic Leukemia / Leukemic Blast Progenitors / Cytokine / Colony-stimulating Factor / Interleukin / Stem Cell Factor / Interleukin-11 / D-factor

Research Abstract

We studied the effects of cytokines on the proliferation of leukemic blast progenitors to explore the indefinite proliferation of leukemia cells in acute myelocytic leukemia patients. Granulocyte- colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin-3 (IL-3), and IL-1 stimulated the growth of leukemic blast progenitors in methylcellulose culture. Stem cell factor (SCF) was also effective on leukemic blast progenitors especially with CD 34 phenotype. IL-11 stimulated leukemic blast progenitors in combination with IL-3 in some patients. In contrast, IL-4 induced differentiation of leukemic blast progenitors and suppressed their growth in some patients. D-factor suppressed the growth of leukemic blast progenitors.
The above results indicate that the growth of leukemic blast progenitors are regulated by the network of several cytokines. The precise mechanism by which each cytokine affects leukemic cells needs to be clarified in the future work.