Hematopoietic progenitor cells increase remarkably in the peripheral blood of children with infection.
BACKGROUND
Peripheral blood (PB) of children with viral infection had remarkable increase in colony-forming unit-granulocyte/macrophage (CFU-GM)-derived colonies and clusters. The authors sought to investigate the hematopoietic changes in children with infection.


METHODS
The CFU-GM-derived colonies and clusters, burst-forming unit-erythroid (BFU-E)-derived colonies, and colony-forming unit-megakaryocyte (CFU-MK)-derived colonies assays and methylcellulose and/or agarose culture of PB were performed in 25 controls and 42 infected patients. Hematopoietic cell assays and cell culture of bone marrow (BM) were performed in 28 controls and 12 infected patients.


RESULTS
The PB controls had very few CFU-GM-derived colonies and clusters. The PB of infected children had many more CFU-GM-derived colonies and clusters. In addition, PB of infected children had abundant BFU-E-derived colonies and CFU-MK-derived colonies, whereas, from BM there were no statistical differences in the numbers of CFU-GM-derived colonies and clusters, BFU-E-derived colonies, and CFU-MK-derived colonies between infection group and control group. The numbers of CFU-GM-derived colonies and clusters were greater in PB of bacteria-infected patients than those in PB of non-bacteria-infected patients.


CONCLUSIONS
PB of infected children had increased numbers of colonies, especially in the bacteria-infected group.
Yeh
Ting-Chi
TC
Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology, Department of Pediatrics, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
Shih
Lee-Yung
LY
Chai
I-Jen
IJ
Liu
Hsi-Che
HC
Wang
Lin-Yen
LY
Chiu
Nan-Chang
NC
Chen
Shu-Huey
SH
Chi
Hsin
H
Liang
Der-Cherng
DC
D000293:Adolescent; D001772:Blood Cell Count; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D055014:Granulocyte-Macrophage Progenitor Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007239:Infections / Q000097:blood*; D008297:Male; D055015:Megakaryocyte-Erythroid Progenitor Cells / Q000166:cytology*