Interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor production in acute non-lymphoid leukemia

We have investigated interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) release in 20 patients with acute non-lymphoid leukemia (ANLL) after culture with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or in the absence of deliberate stimulation. IL-1 and TNF were identified by appropriate bioassays inhibitable by specific antibodies. The capacity to produce IL-1 was expressed by most ANLL cases investigated irrespective of the FAB (French, American, British) subtype. However, the M4 and M5 cases tended to be better producers of IL-1 than M1-M3 cases. In contrast, TNF release was only restricted to M5 leukemias (3 out of 4 cases examined). Cytokine production may therefore provide additional criteria for a functional classification of ANLL. A considerable proportion of ANLL cases (7/18 bone marrow samples and 12/20 blood samples) released appreciable quantities of IL-1 in culture in the absence of deliberate stimulation. "Spontaneous" TNF production was also detected in 1 out of 3 M5 cases. Cells were cultured under LPS-negative conditions and polymixin B did not affect spontaneous cytokine release. Moreover, Northern blot analysis showed that freshly isolated, non-cultured ANLL cells expressed IL-1 beta transcripts. Inasmuch as IL-1 is responsible for hemopoietin-1 activity and IL-1 induces colony stimulating factor production in various cell types, the observation of IL-1 production in ANLL suggests that this mediator may be involved in regulatory amplifying circuits of leukemic cell proliferation.