# A cell initiating human acute myeloid leukaemia after transplantation into SCID mice

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-lapidot-nature/  
OnCo record `paper-lapidot-nature` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one term page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 7509044 and published in Nature; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Most human acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cells have limited proliferative capacity, suggesting that the leukaemic clone may be maintained by a rare population of stem cells. This putative leukaemic stem cell has not been characterized because the available in vitro assays can only detect progenitors with limited proliferative and replating potential. We have now identified an AML-initiating cell by transplantation into severe combined immune-deficient (SCID) mice. These cells homed to the bone marrow and proliferated extensively in response to in vivo cytokine treatment, resulting in a pattern of dissemination and leukaemic cell morphology similar to that seen in the original patients. Limiting dilution analysis showed that the frequency of these leukaemia-initiating cells in the peripheral blood of AML patients was one engraftment unit in 250,000 cells. We fractionated AML cells on the basis of cell-surface-marker expression and found that the leukaemia-initiating cells that could engraft SCID mice to produce large numbers of colony-forming progenitors were CD34+ CD38-; however, the CD34+ CD38+ and CD34- fractions contained no cells with these properties. This in vivo model replicates many aspects of human AML and defines a new leukaemia-initiating cell which is less mature than colony-forming cells.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 7509044 (DOI 10.1038/367645a0). Matched by DOI alone: one term page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Nature
- Year: 1994
- DOI: 10.1038/367645a0
- Authors: Lapidot T, Sirard C, Vormoor J, et al.
- What it means: One term page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- Nature 1994: https://doi.org/10.1038/367645a0
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7509044/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/7509044

## Connected records

- terms: [Cancer stem cell theory and phenotypic plasticity](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-stem-cell-theory/)
- journals: [Nature](https://onco.cc/journals/nature/)

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