Purging in autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide (4-HC).

In this study, we show potent in vitro purging induced by adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for leukemic cells. The treatment of murine L1210 leukemic cells with 2mM of ATP in vitro for 3h was able to reduce the number of leukemic clonogenic cells by about one order of magnitude presumably by changing the permeability of the leukemic cell membrane. Furthermore, the incubation of L1210 cells with ATP (2mM) and low dose 4-hydroperoxycyclophosphamide (4-HC, 2 microg/ml) for 3h resulted in at least a four-log reduction of clonogenic L1210 cells.