Apoptosis and cell proliferation capacity in AKR lymphoma malignancy variants

Dyresgulation in apoptotic cell death has recently emerged as a factor in t umorigenesis, but its effect in tumor progression is not yet established. I n the present study we evaluated the levels of proliferative and apoptotic cell fractions in a T-cell lymphoma tumor progression model. We compared th ese features and the expression of apoptosis-related genes in primary tumor s of several AKR lymphoma malignancy variants. According to DNA flow cytome try, a considerable proportion of cells (35-40%) was in the proliferative ( S + G(2)/M) phase in all variants, but a slight augmentation with increasin g malignancy was noted. Apoptotic cell content was, unexpectedly, the lowes t in the less malignant variant. This might be due to the higher content in macrophages observed in this variant, which possibly partly eliminated apo ptotic bodies. We found an increase in bcl-2 level with increasing malignan cy that was probably counterbalanced by the simultaneous increase observed in the Fas receptor.