title: The mechanism of the anaemia in rheumatoid arthritis: effects of bone marrow adherent cells and of serum on in-vitro erythropoiesis.
abstract: Clonal assays for erythroid progenitors (BFU-e and CFU-e) were used to study 20 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, 15 of whom had anaemia of chronic disease and five of whom were haematologically normal. The numbers of bone marrow BFU-e and CFU-e in the anaemic patients did not differ significantly from those in normal controls. Macrophages were removed from the bone marrow by a combination of adherence and buoyant density centrifugation over a sucrose gradient and the resulting fractions were cultured alone or together with autologous adherent cells in BFU-e assays. Co-culture with adherent cells significantly increased colony growth in both the controls and in seven of eight anaemic patients studied. Serum from 14 anaemic patients and from five non-anaemic patients was added to cultures of bone marrow or to control peripheral blood 'null' cells. Anaemic serum uniformly either inhibited or failed to stimulate BFU-e growth under these conditions. Serum from non-anaemic patients and from 10 healthy controls stimulated BFU-e growth from 'null' cells to an equal degree.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000740:Anemia / Q000209:etiology*; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications*; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D003114:Colony-Forming Units Assay; D004920:Erythropoiesis / Q000187:drug effects; D005260:Female; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007501:Iron / Q000494:pharmacology; D008215:Lymphocytes, Null / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009000:Monocytes / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D007501:Iron