PROTEIN STUDY OF T-ACUTE AND B-ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC-LEUKEMIA CELL-LINES

Two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2-D PAGE) was used to identify cellular proteins in T and B acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cell lines. Five lines, REH and BALL-1 of B-cell lineage, CCRF- CEM and HPB-ALL of T-cell lineage, and a normal Epstein-Barr virus (EB V)-transformed line of B-origin (SKLN1) were studied. The lines were i mmunophenotyped using flow cytometry and lineage associated monoclonal antibodies. Whole cell lysates of the cell lines were subjected to 2- D PAGE analyses. 2-D gels were analyzed with an image scanning compute r and the qualitative as well as quantitative differences of the prote in patterns were studied. Despite the great similarities in the patter ns of the B- and T-gels, three proteins were unique to B-cell lines, w hile eight were unique to T-cell lines. Using cell lines is the first step toward identifying potential markers in ALL and can provide impor tant information regarding the human ALL databases. Whether these prot eins are definite markers for B- or TALL or are unique to the cell lin es studied needs further exploration.