Differential sensitivity of leukemic cells to growth inhibition by deoxyadenosine and deoxycoformycin.

Both established cell lines and human leukemic cells in circulating blood which were incubated in vitro with 2'-deoxyadenosine (AdR) plus adenosine deaminase inhibitor, 2'-deoxycoformycin (dCF), showed different metabolic responses depending upon the histologic and immunologic types of leukemia. The leukemic T-cell lines in tissue culture were 200-fold more sensitive than B-cell lines to the toxic effect of deoxyadenosine. The increased sensitivity of T-cell lines to AdR plus dCF was associated with the accumulation of deoxyadenosine triphosphate (dATP) in the cells. In established cell lines, an inverse correlation was observed between ED 50 of AdR plus dCF and the relative increase of dATP levels in the cells after the incubation of the cells with AdR plus dCF. In circulating leukemic cells that had been incubated with AdR and dCF, dATP arose in all groups but the correlation was not found between the sensitivity of AdR and the relative dATP accumulation. The failure to find the correlation in patients's leukemic cells may be attributed to the heterogeneity of the response of the blasts to AdR and dCF.