Bone marrows of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients with a bcl-2 translocation can be purged of polymerase chain reaction-detectable lymphoma cells using monoclonal antibodies and immunomagnetic bead depletion.

Using the extremely sensitive technique of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect the bcl-2 translocation, only 50% of bone marrows could be purged of PCR-detectable lymphoma cells using a cocktail of three anti-B-cell monoclonal antibodies (MoAbs) and complement-mediated lysis. This observation is of clinical importance because those patients whose reinfused marrows harbored residual lymphoma cells showed a significantly increased incidence of relapse. To improve purging, we used PCR detection of the bcl-2 translocation to compare the efficiency of complement-mediated lysis with immunomagnetic bead depletion. Using either a three or a four MoAb cocktail followed by immunomagnetic bead depletion, all PCR-detectable cells were purged after three cycles of treatment. In these same patient samples, treatment with three MoAbs and complement purged only 11 of the 25 (44%) samples. The addition of a fourth MoAb followed by complement lysis purged the marrows of only an additional five patients. Immunomagnetic bead depletion was specific because there was no loss of committed myeloid progenitor cells. The above results suggest that immunomagnetic bead depletion of the harvested marrow will likely be superior to our previous method of purging and the lack of nonspecific toxicity to myeloid progenitor cells predicts that it will not impair engraftment. This methodology will now be used to determine whether the reinfusion of lymphoma free marrow affects the incidence of relapse after autologous bone marrow transplantation.