Biological characteristics of CD7 positive acute myelogenous leukaemia

We studied the biological characteristics of CD7+ acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML). We diagnosed nine out of 88 consecutive AML cases as CD7+ AML based on myeloperoxidase positivity and surface antigen expression. In eight of these nine cases more than 20% of leukaemic blasts were found to coexpress both CD7 and a myeloid-associated antigen, CD33, by a two-colour flow-cytometric assay, while in the remaining case more than 90% of blasts were positive for CD7 and myeloperoxidase. CD7+ AML was most frequently observed in M1 among AML subtypes according to the FAB classification. An early stage-specific antigen, CD34 was also expressed on leukaemic blasts from eight of these nine cases. Neither the T-cell receptor (TcR)-beta nor the TcR-gamma gene was clonally rearranged in any of the cases. We then studied the proliferative responses to stimulation by various growth factors. Among interleukin-3 (IL-3), granulocyte/macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and granulocyte-CSF (G-CSF), IL-3 showed the strongest stimulatory effect on DNA synthesis and leukaemic blast colony formation in 8/9 and 6/8 CD7+ AML cases examined, respectively. On the other hand, the strongest stimulatory effect exerted by IL-3 on blast colony formation was observed in only six out of the 33 CD7- AML cases examined. Furthermore, CD7+ AML blasts could proliferate in response to stem cell factor (SCF); SCF alone showed stimulatory effects on blast colony formation (7/8 cases), and in 5/7 SCF-responding cases, stimulatory effects of SCF were more potent than those of IL-3. In addition, SCF enhanced blast colony formation synergistically with IL-3 in four of these seven cases. These data suggest that progenitor cells of CD7+ AML may possess the biological properties characteristic of immature haematopoietic stem cells.