Human Granulocyte‐Macrophage Colony‐stimulating Factor Is a Growth Factor Active on Human Ovarian Cancer Cells

Human granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor (GM‐CSF) is a regulatory glycoprotein that stimulates the production of granulocytes and macrophages from committed hematopoietic progenitor cells both in vitro and in vivo. In this report, we show that recomhinant human GM‐CSF enhances colony formation by nonhematopoietic human ovarian cancer cell lines, IGROV‐1, A2774, ME‐180, Pa‐1 and A2780. GM‐CSF also enhanced the colony formation by cells obtained from fresh ascites of a patient with ovarian mucinous cystadenocarcinoma and a patient with serous papillary ovarian carcinoma. Our observations were made with GM‐CSF concentrations between 0.1 to 1 ng/ ml; these concentrations are equivalent to the dosages generally used for bone marrow recovery after chemotherapy.