Comparison between agar and methylcellulose cultures of human leukemic cells.

A comparison was made between the agar and methylcellulose culture systems with respect to their ability to support the clonal growth of leukemic cells obtained from patients with acute myeloblastic leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia in blastic crisis. The number of clusters and/or colonies formed and the morphology of the cells within them varied from patient to patient. Nevertheless, no significant difference between the two culture systems within given leukemic specimens was found. No significant differences were noted among three different conditioned media used as sources of colony-stimulating activity. Most of the cells within clusters and colonies were identified to be immature members of granulocyte-macrophage series or to be indistinguishable from the preculture leukemic blast cells by morphological and cell surface marker studies. Cells from myeloid crisis in chronic myelogenous leukemia grew well in the cultures, but cells from lymphoid crisis did not proliferate.