Modeling Chemotherapy Resistant Leukemia In Vitro

The overall goal of this procedure, is to better model resistant acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, in vitro. This method can help answer key questions in the treatment of refractory ALL about how the bone marrow microenvironment influences ALL cell chemotherapeutic resistance. The main advantages of this technique are that it is considerably cheaper and less time consuming than utilizing traditional animal models to examine drug advocacy on refractory ALL cells.

Begin by seeding five to 20 times 10 to the sixth leukemic cells in 10 milliliters of tumor-specific culture medium onto a 100 millimeter plate of 80 to 90%confluent bone marrow stromal cells or osteoblasts. Every fourth day, tilt the plate to the side and aspirate all but one milliliter of the medium, taking care not to disturb the adherent cell layer. Then, carefully add nine milliliters of fresh leukemic cell culture medium dropwise into the corner of the plate along the side to ensure a minimal disruption of the adherent cells.