Cultivation of leukemic human bone marrow cells in diffusion chambers implanted into normal and irradiated mice.

In order to elucidate the question of whether the maturation defect in vivo in acute leukemia is due to environmental or cellular factors, we have cultured human leukemic cells in a nonleukemic milieu, i.e., diffusion chambers implanted into the abdominal cavity of normal and irradiated mice. For each harvest, the cell count was measured and differential counts and the number of peroxidase-positive cells determined. The cell number decreased with time, without significant difference between culture in irradiated (500 rads) and normal mice. The blast cells succeeded only in developing distorted promyelocytes and myelocytes. There was a general pattern of increase in the number of peroxidase-positive cells. The study supports the concept that acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a disturbance of cellular maturation due to cellular rather than environmental defects.