Mucormycosis is an uncommon acute and often fatal opportunistic fungal infection that is classically seen with poorly controlled diabetes mellitus with acidosis, acute leukemia, or other immunosuppressive conditions. A relatively new association of mucormycosis occurring in patients with iron and aluminum excess who receive deferoxamine therapy has been reported with increasing frequency. While...

High levels of telomerase activity and high rates of cell proliferation are associated with a poor prognosis in acute myelogenous leukemia. Furthermore, cytokine production by leukemia cells is believed to play an important role in determining the proliferative characteristics of leukemia. The in vivo effects of two noncytotoxic agents on these parameters were determined in 33 acute myelogenous...

Aberrant hypermethylation of tumor suppressor genes plays an important role in the development of many tumors. Recently identified new DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) genes, DNMT3A and DNMT3B, code for de novo methyltransferases. To determine the roles of DNMT3A, DNMT3B, as well as DNMT1, in the development of leukemia, competitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays were performed and the expr...

Donor lymphocyte infusions (DLIs) induce potent graft versus tumor (GVT) effects for relapsed chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) but are disappointing for other diseases. Disease resistance can occur if donor T cells are not appropriately activated in vivo. Ex vivo T-cell activation might overcome diseaseinduced anergy and augment GVT activity. W...

Antisera have been raised to human leukemic blast cells from individual patients in mice rendered tolerant with cyclophosphamide to remission leukocytes from the same individual. 10 antisera were raised against acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) cells and 5 antisera were raised against acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells. Antisera to AML cells were absorbed with ALL cells, and antisera to AL...

Recent studies suggest that lymphoid blast crisis cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) expressing the common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen (CALLA) are B precursor cells, based on the demonstration of immunoglobulin (Ig) gene rearrangement similar to common acute lymphocytic leukemia. There is little evidence to suggest whether the cells with similar lymphoid characteristics in the...

Differentiation inhibitory factor (nm23 protein) inhibited the induction of differentiation of mouse myeloid leukemia M1 and WEHI-3BD+ and human erythroleukemia HEL, KU812, and K562 cells. Block of differentiation may be associated with the aggressive behavior of leukemia. To examine the role of nm23 in human myeloid leukemia, we investigated the relative levels of nm23-H1, nm23-H2, and c-myc t...

The connection with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) of dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (hDHODH), a key enzyme in pyrimidine biosynthesis, has attracted significant interest from pharma as possible AML therapeutic target. We recently discovered compound 1, potent hDHODH inhibitor (IC50 = 1.2 nM), able to induce myeloid differentiation cell lines (THP1) the low nM range (EC50 32.8 nM) superior breq...

The bovine leukemia virus (BLV) is the causative agent of enzootic bovine leucosis. This study investigated the presence of the BLV in leukemia (179 acute lymphoblastic leukemia, 292 acute myeloid leukemia and 46 chronic myelogenous leukemia cases) and 162 lung cancer patients (139 adenocarcinoma, 23 squamous cell carcinoma) to determine if the BLV is a causative organism of leukemia and lung c...

An RNA-directed DNA polymerase was isolated from the peripheral blood leukocytes of a patient with acute myelomonocytic leukemia by successive purification of a particulate cytoplasmic fraction with endogenous, ribonuclease-sensitive DNA polymerase activity. Like RNA-directed DNA polymerase from mammalian type-C virus, the human leukemic cell enzyme efficiently utilized (A)(n).(dT)(12-18) and (...