Properties and usefulness of the original K-562 human myelogenous leukemia cell line

Abstract

THE K-562 CELL line was originally established in our laboratory in 1970 from a pleural effusion of a patient with CML in terminal blastic crisis and has been characterized as a highly undifferentiated cell of the granulocytic series [17, 23-25, 28]. In view of the fact that this laboratory was the original source of K-562 cells and the progenitor of all sublines now in existence and doubts have recently been cast [1, 2] on the nature of the K-562 cell line, an update of the structural and functional features of the original cell line appears to be warranted. This cell line has been maintained in our tissue culture unit for nearly 9 y as continuous serial culture passages and as a series of stock passages preserved frozen in liquid nitrogen. Data on the K-562 cells not reported previously are presented. The applications and usefulness of this unique and reliable source of myelogenous leukemia cells of human origin in approaches to the immunotherapy of leukemia have also been included in this review. The information provided herein should serve as the standard reference information to compare with the characteristics of sublines derived from the original K-562 cell line and currently maintained in literally hundreds of laboratories around the world. To fully assess the information of the original K-562 cell line, the results of studies done by others on sublines of K-562 have purposely been excluded.