1986 Volume 77 Issue 4 Pages 392-398
Among normal lymphocytes, T cells can readjust their volume rapidly following initial swelling in a hypotonic medium, whereas B cells do not have this ability. Based on this finding, we examined the volume regulation of malignant cells from 40 patients with lymphocytic and nonlymphocytic malignancies. The T lineage cells were able to regulate their volume in response to hypotonic stress, whereas B lineage cells were not able to do so. In contrast to lymphoid lineage cells, nonlymphocytic leukemia cells as well as undifferentiated cells did not show a consistent tendency in their volume regulation. These results showed that the difference in the ability to regulate cell volume in response to hypotonic stress is available as a marker for identifying the cellular lineage of lymphoid malignancies.
