Figure 2. Pituitary and gonadal sex hormones are chemoattractants for human leukemia cells.

(A–E) Transmigration of myeloid leukemia cell lines through Transwell membranes in response to FSH (2–20 IU/mL), LH (2–20 IU/mL), prolactin (0.5–5 μg/mL), estradiol (0.1–1 μM), and progesterone (0.1–1 μM). A similar experiment was also performed to assess the effect of these hormones on migration of different B-lymphoid (F–J) and T-lymphoid (K–O) leukemic lineages. These cells were rendered quiescent in 0.5% BSA in RPMI 1640 medium for 5 h at 37°C. The effects of all these hormones on migration of all leukemia cell lines employed (10⁵ cells/100 μL/insert) were also evaluated for migration in response to stromal-derived factor 1 (300 ng/mL) and RPMI medium containing 0.5% BSA as a positive and negative control, respectively. The migrated cells were harvested and counted by FACS analysis. The negative control values are normalized to 100%. Data are displayed as means ± SD, with a statistical significance compared with the control of *p ≤ .05 and **p ≤ .01.