Viability of Stored Bone Marrow Colony Forming Units

Abstract

THE continued use of bone marrow transplantation¹ in disease states and after accidental or therapeutic exposure to radiation has led to an increasing number of in vitro and in vivo studies of the viability of human and animal bone marrow. Among the more recent methods for quantitative studies of animal marrow is the mouse spleen colony technique. Till and McCulloch² were the first to show that syngeneic mouse bone marrow, when injected into animals which had received a lethal dose of radiation, will cause the formation of macroscopic spleen nodules in a number directly proportional to the number of injected cells. These discrete colonies are assumed to arise from single marrow cells, which are generally described as colony forming units (CFU) and are often equated with the marrow stem cell. This method of studying colony formation has been used to study stem cell kinetics³, cellular radiation sensitivity², immune reactions⁴, anaemic mutants⁵, and various phases of haematopoietic repopulation in the normal and post-irradiation states.