Primary proliferating immature myeloid cells from CML patients are not resistant to induction of apoptosis by DNA damage and growth factor withdrawal.

Induction of apoptosis by growth factor deprivation or gamma-irradiation-induced DNA damage was directly studied in proliferating primary haemopoietic cells derived from CD34-positive cells of 13 CML patients and 12 normal controls. CD34-positive cells were cultured in the presence of appropriate concentrations of SCF and G-CSF for 5–7 d. After gamma irradiation with 500 rad or growth factor deprivation, the fraction of apoptotic cells was assessed by two independent methods applying either measurement of cells incorporating FITC-labelled dUTP by terminal transferase or assessment of the fraction of cells with a less than 2N DNA content in flow cytometry. Proliferating CML cells were not re…