Platelet-mediated cytotoxicity and its enhancement by platelet activating factor.

Platelet cytotoxicity was assessed in 70 cancer patients with various tumor localizations and in 30 normal donors. The data presented reveal that the ACL cell line displays the highest sensitivity to platelet cytotoxicity. Using the ACL cells, we discovered that platelets from oncological patients and normal donors display comparable cytotoxicity. The level of platelet lytic activity is irrelevant to tumor localisation; however, it appears to be dependent on the stage of tumor growth. Incubation of platelets, both from donors and patients, with PAF (concentration range 10 pM to 10 nM) results in a significant rise of the killing activity of platelets. PAF induces greater cytotoxicity enhancement for platelets with lower initial activity, this pattern appearing to be the specific feature of the PAF mediated effect. Hence, platelets can be considered as effector cells relevant to antitumor immunity; PAF-mediated enhancement of platelet cytotoxicity can appear to be useful in the search for new immunotherapeutic drugs.