Frishman J, Long B, Knospe W, Gregory S, Plate J
Department of Medicine, Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois 60612.
J Exp Med. 1993 Apr 1;177(4):955-64. doi: 10.1084/jem.177.4.955.
Regulation of expression of interleukin 7 (IL-7) mRNA is aberrant in the leukemic subset of cells of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients. The entire coding sequence for IL-7 as well as an alternatively spliced IL-7 mRNA are transcribed in these leukemic cells. No IL-7 mRNA expression is detected in fresh peripheral blood mononuclear cells from normal individuals. Furthermore, the "normal" nonleukemic subsets of cells isolated from the same CLL patients also do not express IL-7 mRNA. The only subset of cells in which IL-7 mRNA is detected is the one that contains the leukemic cells themselves. The polymerase chain reaction was used to examine cytokine expression, and flow cytometry was used to purify the various subsets of peripheral blood mononuclear cells examined in these studies, as well as to examine IL-7 receptor expression. A proportion of the cells from the CLL patients express receptors that are capable of binding IL-7, whereas T cell-depleted normal cell preparations do not express receptors for IL-7 that are detectable with IL-7 fluorokines. The IL-7 receptor-bearing cells in CLL patients include a portion of leukemic cells and a fraction of the T cells, as well as some non-T, non-B cells. These findings suggest that IL-7 and IL-7 receptor expression in CLL may be relevant not only to growth regulation of the leukemic cells but to the immunological abnormalities that occur in the disease as well, possibly via the induction of inappropriate immune activity of IL-7 receptor-bearing cells.
慢性淋巴细胞白血病（CLL）患者白血病细胞亚群中白细胞介素7（IL-7）mRNA的表达调控异常。这些白血病细胞转录了IL-7的完整编码序列以及一个选择性剪接的IL-7 mRNA。在正常个体的新鲜外周血单核细胞中未检测到IL-7 mRNA表达。此外，从同一CLL患者分离的“正常”非白血病细胞亚群也不表达IL-7 mRNA。唯一检测到IL-7 mRNA的细胞亚群是包含白血病细胞自身的亚群。在这些研究中，使用聚合酶链反应检测细胞因子表达，并使用流式细胞术纯化所检测的外周血单核细胞的各个亚群，以及检测IL-7受体表达。一部分CLL患者的细胞表达能够结合IL-7的受体，而去除T细胞的正常细胞制剂不表达可被IL-7荧光素检测到的IL-7受体。CLL患者中携带IL-7受体的细胞包括一部分白血病细胞、一部分T细胞以及一些非T、非B细胞。这些发现表明，CLL中IL-7和IL-7受体的表达可能不仅与白血病细胞的生长调控有关，而且与该疾病中发生的免疫异常有关，可能是通过诱导携带IL-7受体的细胞产生不适当的免疫活性。
