Title

The effect of noradrenergic agents on growth of healthy and leukemic bone marrow cells

Date of Completion

January 1999

Keywords

Biology, Molecular|Biology, Cell|Chemistry, Analytical|Health Sciences, Oncology

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

This work is based on the hypothesis that the central nervous system may play a role in hematopoiesis (the formation and development of various types of blood cells) in human bone marrow. The innervation of the bone marrow by sympathetic nerve fibers has been documented in the literature and some bone marrow cells are known to have adrenergic receptor sites. Experiments were designed to test the effect of noradrenergic agents such as norepinephrine upon the growth, proliferation or differentiation of healthy and leukemic bone marrow cell lines. ^ The effect of norepinephrine was studied on healthy human bone marrow cells. Microscope glass slides were made of these cultures and the cells were identified and counted from this. The data obtained were inconclusive. ^ Experiments using the tetrazolium dye, XTT, to quantitate the growth of leukemic lymphocyte cell lines were conducted. Observed artifacts in this assay procedure resulted in misleading early conclusions. A revised protocol to eliminate or reduce these artifacts from the assay procedure was described. The data obtained did not indicate an effect of NE on these cell lines under the conditions of the experiment. ^ Colony Assays of Human cells were used to evaluate the possible effects of norepinephrine on particularly the myeloid progenitor cells of healthy human bone marrow cells. Data of the scoring or counting of the CFU-GM and CFU-GEMM colonies did not indicate an effect of norepinephrine on these cells. ^ The effect of norepinephrine on neuroblastoma cells were evaluated using the XTT assay. Results from this experiment did not indicate any effect of norepinephrine upon the neuroblastoma cells under the conditions of this experiment. ^ These aforementioned experiments were conducted without using bio-analytical instruments such as flow cytometers or hematology analyzers. Future work using either instrument would ultimately produce better quality data in addressing the hypothesis. ^

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