Chromosome-mediated transfer of the malignant phenotype by human acute myelogenous leukemic cells.

Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) is a malignancy of the myeloid cells of the bone marrow. Recently, a number of groups have demonstrated that it is possible to study the malignant phenotype at the level of DNA through gene transfer experiments. We have used such an approach to determine whether it is possible to transfer the malignant phenotype of anchorage independence from human AML cells to anchorage-dependent rodent cells, using chromosomes as the source of genetic information. We found that chromosomes isolated from leukemic cell lines were capable of transferring the malignant phenotype of anchorage independence, whereas chromosomes derived from the lymphocytes of normal individuals were not active in this assay. Using Southern blot analysis of the DNA from transferants, we were able to show that the transfer of anchorage independence correlated with the presence of human DNA in the transferants. The pattern of human DNA in the transferants derived from different transfection experiments is compared.