Donor Derived Human Bone Marrow Cells Contribute to Solid Organ Cancers Developing After Bone Marrow Transplantation

¹ Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
² Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA
³ Division of Molecular Cytogenetics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA
⁴ Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA
⁵ Department of Surgery, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: avitali{at}mail.nih.gov.

	Abstract

Bone marrow derived stem cells have been shown to participate in solid organ repair after tissue injury. Animal models suggest that epithelial malignancies may arise as aberrant stem cell differentiation during tissue repair. We hypothesized that if bone marrow stem cells participate in human neoplasia then solid organ cancers developing after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) might include malignant cells of donor origin. We identified four male patients who developed solid organ cancers (lung adenocarcinoma, laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma, glioblastoma, and Kaposi sarcoma) after myeloablation, total body irradiation (TBI) and ABMT from female donors. Donor derived malignant cells comprised 2.5 – 6% of the tumor cellularity The presence of donor derived malignant cells in solid organ cancers might suggests that human bone marrow derived stem cells have a role in solid organ cancer's carcinogenesis. However, the nature of this role is yet to be defined.

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