Somatostatin and its cyclic octapeptide analog SMS 201-995 as inhibitors of proliferation of human acute lymphoblastic and acute myeloid leukemia.

Somatostatin (SS) is a 14 amino acid peptide which is secreted by the hypothalamus and the pancreatic islets. It expresses antiproliferative activity in various organ systems, experiments have suggested effects of SS on hematopoietic cells. Here we present investigations regarding the effect of SS and its analog SMS 201-995 (SMS) on the in vitro proliferation of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL; n = 7 cases), acute myeloid leukemia (AML; n = 21 cases) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL; n = 2 cases). Both SS and SMS inhibited spontaneous leukemic cell growth in approximately 1/3 of cases (i.e. 7/19). G-CSF stimulated AML cells were inhibited by SMS in 11/21 cases. AML cell proliferation induced by IL-3 or GM-CSF was suppressed in only 3/21 and 6/21 cases, respectively. In ALL cells, IL-7-induced proliferation was suppressed by SMS in 3/7 cases. The effect of SMS seemed to depend on the type of the hematopoietic growth factor, and on their concentrations. In fact, high concentrations of G-CSF could override SMS blocking completely. Colony formation by normal marrow progenitors and DNA synthesis by HL-60 and T11/65 leukemic cell lines were not affected by SMS. In conclusion, somatostatin may act as a negative regulator of the proliferative activity of human leukemia.