Generation of adherent lymphokine activated killer (A-LAK) cells from patients with acute myelogenous leukaemia.

Successful generation of adherent lymphokine-activated killer (A-LAK) cells, highly-enriched in CD3-CD56+ antitumour effector cells, from the peripheral blood of ten patients with acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML) is described. The AML patients were either untreated or in remission. In vitro proliferation of A-LAK cells in patients with AML was generally poor, unless the cells were cocultured with irradiated concanavalin A (ConA)--prestimulated allogeneic PBL or selected lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCL) as feeder cells. Using this method, the median fold proliferation was 290 for A-LAK cells cultured with ConA-activated feeders and 291 for those grown with LCL, both significantly higher (both P less than 0.001) than the median of 2-fold expansion observed in cultures without feeders. A-LAK cultures generated in the presence of feeders consistently showed good enrichment (up to 90%) in CD3-CD56+ NK cells. Although NK activity was not significantly increased on a per cell basis in A-LAK cells grown with feeder cells, total lytic activities against both NK-sensitive target, K562, and NK-resistant target, Daudi, were significantly greater (P less than 0.02 for ConA-PBL feeders and P less than 0.005 for LCL feeders) as compared to those in paired cultures without feeders. In the presence of irradiated allogeneic feeder cells, 7/10 AML patients generated A-LAK cultures characterised by good proliferation and increased purity as well as cytotoxic activity.