Differential chemotherapeutic susceptibility of human T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes in culture.

After previous work from this laboratory revealed that asparaginase was 800-2,000 times more inhibitory against human T-lymphocytes in culture than against B-lymphocytes, a similar further study of 13 chemotherapeutic and immunosuppressive agents was done. Cytosine arabinoside and 5-fluorouracil also had differential inhibitory activities on human T- and B-cells in culture. On the basis of the dose producing 50% inhibition of viable cell growth on day 5, cytosine arabinoside had 45-80 times more inhibitory activity against T-cells than against B-cells. In contrast to asparaginase and cytosine arabinoside, 5-fluorouracil had 10-20 times more inhibitory activity against B-cells. The rest of the chemotherapeutic and immunosupressive agents tested had minor or no differential activity. These findings indicated that T-cell response to asparaginase and cytosine arabinoside and B-cell response to 5-fluorouracil may be exploitable for the differential immunosuppressive effects presumed to be active in vivo. In addition, such differential responses may predict differential tumor cell behavior against these chemotherapeutic agents by T- and B-cell neoplasms in vivo.