Study of differentiation of fresh myeloid leukemic cells by physiologic agents that induce a human promyelocytic leukemic line (HL-60) to differentiate.

A promyelocytic cell line known as HL-60 can be induced to mature to granulocytes or monocytes after exposure to a variety of physiologic agents including 1-alpha 25 dihydroxy Vitamin D3 (Vit D), retinoic acid, cyclic AMP cell permeant compounds, and stimulators of adenylate cyclase. These compounds were used in primary culture of blast cells from 12 patients with acute nonlymphocytic leukemia. Maturation was assessed by morphology, superoxide production, development of esterase activity and chemotactic peptide receptor expression. Morphologic maturation and superoxide production correlated with chemotactic peptide receptor expression. The majority of blast cells treated with inducer showed no significant change in morphologic or functional markers compared to the blast cells cultured in fresh media alone. Chemotactic peptide receptor expression increased 3 to 30-fold in 13 of 14 cases studied. In 4 patients, the highest receptor expression was without inducer and in 4 patients the highest increase was with dibutyryl cyclic AMP treatment. Our study suggests that physiologic inducers of HL-60 differentiation do not consistently have the same effect on primary suspension culture of freshly isolated human leukemia cells.