Acute Leukemia and Nonspecific Killer Cells

This paper is to give a contribution to two aspects of the study of leukemia: functional characterization of human leukemia cells and cellular mechanisms leading to the killing of leukemia cells. Considering that some populations of nonmatured lymphocytic and myelolytic cells are natural killer (NK) cells or effectors of the antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (K cells), we have been looking for these effector cells in patients suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) or acute nonlymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL). In cases with high leukemic blast counts the possibility of detection of leukemic NK or K cells may exist. Since animal experiments indicate a bone marrow origin of non-specific killer cells, we directly compared effector cell activities of mononuclear blood leukocytes (PBL) and bone marrow (BM) cells.