Proliferation in liquid culture of myeloid progenitor cells from the blood of normals and patients with aplastic anaemia.
We studied myeloid progenitor cells (CFUc) from peripheral blood mononuclear leukocytes (MNL) of normals and patients with severe aplastic anaemia (AA). Baseline CFUc averaged 4.4 +/- 1.5 (range 0--17)/10(6) MNL in fifteen normals and 0 +/- 1/10(6) MNL in six patients with severe AA (P less than 0.05). To assess CFUc proliferative capacity, 10(7) MNL were put into liquid culture in Marbrook chambers with colony-stimulating activity and sub-cultured in agar at intervals up to 10 days. CFUc from normal MNL increased from 44 +/- 15/chamber at Day 0 to 156 +/- 33/chamber at peak value (P less than 0.02). In contrast, CFUc from AA MNL remained undetectable throughout the period of liquid culture (AA peak v. normal peak; P less than 0.001). These results indicate a marked decrease in circulating CFUc in patients with severe AA, and a profound abnormality in CFUc proliferation in vitro. This abnormality could be due to defective replication of CFUc, a lack of feed-in from more primitive precursors, or both.
D000328:Adult; D000741:Anemia, Aplastic / Q000097:blood*; D002455:Cell Division; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D009000:Monocytes / Q000503:physiopathology*