Cytologie and cytochemistry of colony cells in soft agar gel culture from normal and leukemic bone marrow.

In order to judge differentiation of cells in soft agar colonies, cytological and cytochemical classification of single cells within these colonies is necessary. In this study, 1,026 colonies from 15 normal and 95 leukemic bone marrows have been evaluated using cytological, cytochemical, and immunocytochemical techniques. In 180 colonies from 15 normal controls no segmented neutrophils have been observed. The colonies mostly consisted of monocytes and macrophages, rarely pure eosinophil colonies were observed. The number of monocyte/macrophage colonies in untreated AML and the percentage of pure eosinophil colonies in AML and ALL in remission are reduced, as compared to normal controls. In 174 colonies from a total of 926 colonies derived from bone marrows of leukemic patients, plasma cells and in 20 colonies, blast cells have been observed. In contrast to normal colonies, growth of colonies containing blast cells does not depend upon the conditioned medium of the leukocyte feederlayer. This investigation has demonstrated the necessity of cytological and cytochemical classification in addition to quantiative evaluation of soft agar colonies when studying the effect of factors on proliferation and differentiation of normal and leukemic stem cells.