Enhanced proliferation of transfused marrow and reversal of normal growth inhibition of female marrow in male hosts 2 months after sublethal irradiation.
We have previously shown that bone marrow will seed and proliferate in normal recipients. Transfusion of 50 million cells on each of 4 or 5 consecutive days, a total of 200-250 million cells, resulted in the recipient's marrow being 20-40% of donor origin. The present paper reported on the marked enhancement of proliferation of donor cells in animals that were exposed to sublethal doses of irradiation of 300-900 R. Two months later, when their peripheral blood values had returned to normal, they were transfused with 100 million cells. The number of donor cells in the recipients exposed to 600-900 R reached 55-100% at various intervals after transfusion, with controls averaging 24% and never exceeding 40%. Since the transfused cells numbered less than 40% of the host's own complement of marrow cells, they could not replace 100% of them unless they proliferated more rapidly than the host cells. The implied competitive advantage of the donor cells was ascribed to a reduced capacity for self-renewal of the host's irradiated cells. In recipients exposed to 300 R and in nonirradiated controls, female cells failed to grow in male recipients, while male cells grew as well in female as in male hosts. The inhibition of growth of female cells in the male host was abolished by irradiation with 600 or 900 R, or by the exposure of the female donor cells to anti-Thy-1 serum and complement prior to transfusion. Experiments are under way to test the suggested immunologic nature of the inhibition phenomenon.
D000818:Animals; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002453:Cell Cycle; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D005260:Female; D006410:Hematopoiesis / Q000528:radiation effects*; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D013997:Time Factors