[Effect of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin on the expansion of dendritic cells from peripheral blood of pediatric patients with leukemia in vitro]

Abstract

This study was purposed to investigate the effect of bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG) on the expansion of human dendritic cells (DC) from peripheral blood of pediatric patients with leukemia in vitro. The experiment was divi-ded into two groups: the control and the test group, and the latter group was divided into 3 subgroups: BCG (only BCG), GTI (GM-CSF, TNF-α, IL-4) and GTIB (GM-CSF, TNF-α, IL-4 plus BCG). On day 9 of culture the DCs were counted in each groups, the phenotypes of DC were determined by flow cytometry and these DC were stained with Wright-Giemsa for observation and photography under microscopy. The results showed that the test groups all obtained a certain amount of typical DC; the number of DC in the BCG subgroup is lower than that in the GTI and GTIB subgroups (t=4.20; 6.36, p<0.01); there was no significant difference between the GTI and the GTIB subgroups (t=2.25; p>0.05). The rate of CD1a+ in the BCG subgroup was obviously higher than that in the control group (t=3.04, p<0.05), but was lower than that in the GTI and the GTIB subgroups (t=2.79, 6.41, p<0.05), there was no significant difference between the GTI and the GTIB subgroups (t=0.65, p>0.05). The rate of HLA-DR+, CD83+ in the BCG group was higher than that in the control group (t=4.77, 4.15; p<0.05), but lower than that in the GTI and the GTIB subgroups (t=6.65, 3.19; p<0.05). The rate of HLA-DR+, CD83+ in the GTI subgroup was lower than that in the GTIB subgroup (t=5.64, 2.98; p<0.05). It is concluded that BCG not only promotes the proliferation of DC derived from human peripheral blood of leukemia patients in vitro, but also cooperates with rhGM-CSF, rhTNF-α and rhIL-4 in promoting the maturation of DCs.