Cyclic adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate-dependent and -independent protein kinases in human leukemic cells.

The pattern of protein kinase activity in leukemic cells from patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia, acute myeloblastic leukemia, acute monocytic leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia was studied and compared with normal peripheral blood granulocytes and lymphocytes. Our data showed that: (a) histone kinase activity was slightly lower in leukemic cells than in normal cells, whereas casein kinase activity was 2- to 3-fold higher in leukemic cells; (b) cyclic adenosine 3':5'-monophosphate stimulated 1.4- to 1.6-fold histone kinase activity of both normal and leukemic cells, whereas it did not stimulate casein kinase activity; (c) the ratio of histone kinase activities to casein kinase activities correlated directly with the maturation of the white blood cells; and (d) histone and casein kinase activities of extracts from normal and leukemic cells behaved similarly on chromatography on phosphocellulose and casein/Sepharose 4B. These results suggest that the increase in casein kinase activity is not due to the appearance of a new type of casein kinase but to an increase of the casein kinases 1 and 2 present in normal cells.