T-cell depletion of Cercopithecus aethiops monkey bone marrow with Campath-1 monoclonal antibody and complement.

The effectiveness of anti-human monoclonal antibody (Campath 1) plus complement (C') in removal of T-cells from Cercopithecus aethiops monkey bone marrow was studied. Recovery of haemopoietic progenitor cells (CFU-GM) was also investigated in vitro after treatment with Campath-1 plus C'. The results showed that the cell-yield was 37.2 +/- 9.8 after Ficoll separation and 44.2 +/- 13.2% after Campath-1 + + C' treatment. The CFU-GM yields referred to the original total CFU-GM were 88.9 +/- 24.0 and 40.0 +/- 14.3%, respectively. After Campath-1 treatment, CFU-GM per 10(5) bone marrow cells was 269.3 as compared to the pretreatment value of 213.0. In the T-cell-depleted bone marrow suspensions mature T lymphocytes could not be detected. Following cryopreservation more than 70% of CFU-GM could be recovered in T-cell depleted bone marrow suspensions kept in frozen state for two months. Cercopithecus aethiops monkeys can be used as a model to study T-cell depletion of bone marrow with Campath-1 plus C' for studying allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.