Aclarubicin A, Retinoic Acid On Primary Human Leukemia Cells Induced In Vitro Differentiation

In this study,the differentiation-induction effects of Aclacinomycin-A and All-trans retinoic acid on fresh human ANLL cells in liquid suspension cultures were investigated. On the 7th day of cultivation,samples of 13 out of 21 patients in the flasks containing 60 nM of ACMA showed an increase of mature cells percentage>20.0% as compared with control flasks. In this 13 cases,the decreases of viable and immature cell counts were both significant(p<0.01),but the increase of mature cell counts were not obvious. Eight of the 13 cases showed increase while 5 of the 13 cases showed decrease in mature cell counts.As compared with control,the percentage of NBT positive cells was higher(P<0.05)and the generation of reactive oxygen enhanced(P<0.05)in these 13 patients,but the percentages of cells with C₃ recepter and with alkaline phosphatase did not increase. Increase of percentage of mature cell(20.0% higher than control)was found in 5 from 24 cases treated with RA (10^-6M).Numbers of viable cell counts were not altered,while immature cell counts decreased(P<0.01) and mature cell counts increased as compared with control.In t his 5 cases, the percentage of NBT positive,C₃ receptor positive cells and the amount of generation of reactive oxygen were increased significantly (P<0.05). The percentage of ALP positive cells did not change.The above results suggest that:in vitro,low dose ACMA in this study was able to induce differentiation of leukemia cells in some patients,but its main effect was suppression of leukemia cells due to cytotoxity.The oxidative function of induced mature cells increased.RA can induce differentiation not only in M₃ but in a few M₂ cases,The oxidative function and percentage of C₃ positive cell percentage increased significancly.