Electrophoretic mobility profiles of mouse leukemias. II. Electrophoresis of thymic lymphoma, myeloid leukemia and reticulum sarcoma cells.
Electrophoretic mobility of cells from 21 primary mouse leukemias was investigated and compared with that of various normal mouse reference cells. Six thymic lymphomas, nine reticulum cell sarcomas, five myeloid leukemias and one stem-cell leukemia were examined. The mean AEM of cells from the group of primary thymic lymphomas (1.13 microns s-1 V-1 cm) was similar to that of reticulum cell sarcomas (1.15 microns s-1 V-1 cm) and significantly lower than that of the myeloid leukemias (1.20 microns s-1 V-1 cm). Since the examined cell suspensions were prepared from leukemic lymph nodes, the analysis was performed to investigate the possible admixture of normal LNC in the cell populations. Electrophoretograms of normal and leukemic lymph nodes were compared and the AEM of cells from leukemic lymph nodes was considered separately for two cell populations, one corresponding in size to normal LNC (6-9 microns in diameter) and the other to leukemic blast cells (10-16 microns in diameter). In the 6-9 microns cell subpopulations from leukemic lymph nodes, electrophoretically slow cells corresponding to B LNC were almost totally depleted (1%); also electrophoretically fast cells with the mean AEM of T LNC were fewer (45-57%) than in normal LNC populations. The leukemic cells 10-16 microns in diameter displayed mean AEM of 1.09 (thymic lymphomas), 1.12 (reticulum cell sarcomas) and 1.21 (myeloid leukemia) micron s-1 V-1 cm. The mean AEM of blast cells from thymic lymphomas and reticulum cell sarcomas was not significantly different; it was similar to that of blast cells prepared from normal mouse thymus (1.09 microns s-1 V-1 cm) on a density gradient. In contrast, the 10-16 microns cell populations from lymph nodes of mice with myeloid leukemias were significantly faster than blast cells from thymic lymphomas and reticulum cell sarcomas.