A COMPARISON OF THE ANTIPROLIFERATIVE PROPERTIES OF RECOMBINANT HUMANIFN-ALPHA-2 AND IFN-OMEGA IN HUMAN BONE-MARROW CULTURE

We compared the antiproliferative effects in vitro of recombinant prep arations of interferon-alpha 2c (IFN-alpha 2) and IFN-omega on the for mation of colonies from bone marrow progenitor cells, Both IFNs led to statistically indistinguishable dose-dependent inhibitory effects whe n tested on bone marrow cells derived from 8 normal donors or from 7 p atients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), With bath IFNs, the c ells from CML patients appeared slightly but not significantly more se nsitive to inhibition than the cells from normal donors, These results suggest that under some circumstances, IFN-omega may prove an effecti ve treatment for CML, for example, in those becoming resistant to IFN- alpha 2 because of the formation of neutralizing antibodies.