Implication of Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF) and Interleukin-3 (IL-3) in Children with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML)

Abstract

Granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and Interleukin-3 (IL-3) are increasingly used to stimulate granulopoiesis in neutropenic patients but these are rarely used in the lights of knowledge of the endogenous CSF-levels. In this study we measured serum levels of GM-CSF and IL-3 at diagnosis and after remission in children with acute leukaemia, using an enzyme linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA) techniques in 14 patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) and 27 patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL). Twelve healthy age-matched children were used as a reference group. AML patients showed a highly significant increase in serum levels of GM-CSF and IL-3 before induction of therapy (p < 0.0001) compared to the reference control group, with a highly significant decline of both GM-CSF and IL-3 (p < 0.0001) after successful remission. On the other hand, ALL patients showed no significant elevation of GM-CSF and IL-3 at diagnosis (p > 0.5), with no significant difference between preinduction and postinduction serum levels of either (p > 0.5). Since these cytokines are known to be fundamental for the growth of AML cells, we postulate that the pretreatment levels of both GM-CSF and IL-3 could play a role in the pathogenesis of AML.

The Possible Diagnostic and Prognostic Use of Systemic Chemokine Profiles in Clinical Medicine—The Experience in Acute Myeloid Leukemia from Disease Development and Diagnosis via Conventional Chemotherapy to Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation

“…Systemic levels of several other cytokines have also been compared for AML patients and healthy controls [41,54], and the levels of Interleukin-3 (IL3), IL6, thrombopoietin (Tpo) tumor necrosis factor TNFα and stem cell factor (SCF, c-kit ligand) seem to be increased in patients with untreated AML [47,49,55,56,57,58]. This overexpression will often decline after chemotherapy when disease control with complete hematological remission is achieved [47], although this is not always true (e.g., CXCL10, as described above, Tpo, SCF) [59].…”

Recurrent expression signatures of cytokines and chemokines are present and are independently prognostic in acute myelogenous leukemia and myelodysplasia

“…5 Levels of interleukin-3 (IL-3), IL-6, IL-8, thrombopoietin, tumor necrosis factor-␣ (TNF-␣), CSF2 (granulocyte-macrophage colonystimulating factor), interferon-␥ (IFN-␥), and stem cell factor have been shown to be elevated in leukemia patients compared with healthy controls. [12][13][14][15][16] We have shown that IL-1, IL-2, or CCL3 (MIP1-␣) stimulate leukemia cell proliferation. [17][18][19][20] Overexpression of cytokines in leukemia patients often declines after chemotherapy administration or remission attainment.…”

The T-Cells’ Role in Antileukemic Reactions - Perspectives for Future Therapies’

“…Antileukemic reactivity of T-effector cells was measured by chromium release-, IFN-ELISPOT assays or non-radioactive Fluorolysis assays (Bund et al, 2011;. Intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) and cytokine release profiles were performed by FACS (Cytometric Bead arrays (CBA)), ELISA or ELISPOT (Elbaz & Shaltout 2001;Schmittel 2000;Fischbacher et al, 2011;Merle et al, 2011;Bund et al, 2011). In a dog model we performed in addition an in vivo immunisation with antigen positive cells (Bund et al, 2011).…”