Interleukin 3 enhances the cytotoxic activity of 1‐β‐d‐arabinofuranosylcytosine (ara‐C) on acute myeloblastic leukaemia (AML) cells

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We have evaluated the possibility of enhancing the cell killing effect of ara‐C on AML blasts by increasing their proliferative activity with haemopoietic growth factors. Leukaemic cells from 10 AML patients were incubated for 3 d in liquid culture in the presence or in the absence of the human recombinant growth factors IL‐1β (5 U/ml) and IL‐3 (3 U/ml), and subsequently exposed to ara‐C (3 μ/ml) for the last 24 h. The number of residual leukaemic stem cells was evaluated by a clonogenic assay in semisolid medium. The results showed that ara‐C exposure inhibits the proliferation of a higher proportion of clonogenic cells in cultures pretreated with growth factors than in the controls (mean inhibitory values: in the absence of growth factors = 49.8%: with IL‐1β=58.3%; with IL‐3 78.9%) The effect was statistically significant only when IL‐3 was used as a growth factor.The results suggest that haemopoietic growth factors may help to improve the therapeutic index of cytostatic agents.

This publication has 11 references indexed in Scilit: