Relationships between Components in Primate RNA Tumor Viruses and in the Cytoplasm of Human Leukemic Cells: Implications to Leukemogenesis

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Human Leukemic Cells-General Description

The incidence of leukemia in man is affected by certain, apparently disparate, genetic and environmental factors. However, regardless of the nature of the apparent or, much more frequently, the inapparent predisposing factors, the disease almost invariably fits a pattern recognizable by hematologists, and the cellular disturbance has certain common properties regardless of the exact classification of the disease. The “leukemic” blood cells can be morphologically and histochemically related to normal blood cells, particularly to precursors of normal blood cells in the bone marrow. In the majority of cases, the leukemic cells are recognizable either as belonging to the lymphoid (lymphoblastic or lymphocytic leukemia) or the myeloid (myelogenous, myeloblastic, myelocytic or granulocytic leukemia) type of cells. A constant feature of all classes of leukemia is that immature, less differentiated blood cells are increased disproportionately in the peripheral blood or borne marrow. In the acute leukemias this involves...