PROPERTIES OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS IN PHENYLHYDRAZINE TREATED MICE

Recovery of erythropoiesis was fast in Balb/c mice irradiated 700 R 5 days after initiation of phenylhydrazine treatment and took place predominantly in the spleen, which showed numerous large frequently confluent endogenous colonies. Post irradiation phenylhydrazine induced anaemia did not accelerate recovery of erythropoiesis; it did, however, produce a slight but significant rise in endogenous colony formation.
Radiosensitivity of spleen CFU-S from phenylhydrazine treated mice was similar to that of CFU-S in normal mouse spleen.
Spleen CFU-S in mice 5 days after initiation of phenylhydrazine treatment were sensitive to the lethal action of Hydroxyurea, while bone marrow CFU-S were not.
The self-renewal capacity of CFU-S in the endogenously repopulated spleen of phenylhydrazine pretreated 700 R X-irradiated mice was low when compared to that of spleen exogenously repopulated by cells from normal mouse bone marrow, normal and phenylhydrazine treated mouse spleen. CFU circulating in blood of phenylhydrazine treated mice had a low self-renewal capacity.
The marked strain differences in self-renewal capacity of spleen CFU-S, and of the capacity of spleen CFU-S to increase by proliferation are discussed.     

THE EFFECT OF E TYPE PROSTAGLANDINS ON THE PROLIFERATION OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS IN VIVO

The ability of protaglandins E₁ and E₂ to stimulate the proliferation of haemopoietic stem cells (CFU_s) was studied in vivo. PGE₂, in a dose range of 10^-4 to 10^-1μg/g body weight and PGE₁ in a dose range of 10^-5 to 10^-1μg/g body weight, produced a rapid cycling wave of CFU_s. The increase in the number of CFU_s in S phase was not followed by a rise in the femoral CFU_s content, and except for a transient increase in femoral CFU_c level, no increase in differentiation was found either. Therefore, it is proposed that haemopoiesis after PG-induced CFU stimulation is ineffective. PGE₂ did not stimulate regeneration of CFU_s in a perturbed state (after sublethal irradiation). All these findings support the idea that PGEs might represent potent stimulators of the haemopoietic stem cells acting in physiological doses. However, if acting concurrently with physiological control systems PGs lead to ineffective haemopoiesis (under normal conditions) or do not exert any measurable effect (after sublethal irradiation).     

THE EFFECT OF NITROGEN MUSTARD ON THE HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS OF THE BONE MARROW IN THE RAT

The sensitivity of haemopoietic stem cells to the action of nitrogen mustard has been investigated by transfusion of bone marrow from treated donor rats to recipients whose own haemopoiesis had been reduced to low levels by whole body X-irradiation. By measurement of the resultant erythropoiesis in the recipients with radioactive iron, a comparison of the repopulating ability of nitrogen mustard treated bone marrow with that of normal bone marrow could be made. It was found that although a dose of 0.9 mg/kg body weight reduces bone marrow cellularity to less than 10% of normal, repopulating ability is not decreased to much less than half the normal level. This is in contrast to the effects of X-radiation, which has a more marked effect on the stem cell population than on the differentiated marrow cells. Possible reasons for this difference are discussed. It could be that the proliferative or metabolic state of the cell plays a role, or that some repair mechanism is operative in the stem cells which does not exist in the differentiated cells.     

KINETIC PROPERTIES OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS

A comparison of the exocolonizing and autorepopulating tests for haemopoietic stem-cell assay indicate that the ‘overshoot’in splenic colony formation, observed 12–14 days after 150 rad total-body radiation (TBR), only occurs with the auto-repopulation assay. The explanation is that the priming dose of 150 rad increases the absolute seeding rate of stem cells from the marrow. A seeding rate significantly greater than normal can ‘take’only if the spleen is available—it can expand and accommodate stem cells while the bone marrow cannot. If, however, the absolute number of colony-forming cells are decreased in the femur, a relative increase in seeding rate can take place even in the splenectomized animal. Evidence is presented concerning the different turnover states of exo- and autorepopulating stem cells (CFU) and those responsible for erythropoietic response (ERC), and the precursors of agar colony-formers.     

AGE DEPENDENCE OF THE NUMBER OF THE STEM CELLS IN HAEMOPOIETIC TISSUES OF RATS

The number and concentration of haemopoietic stem cells in the femoral bone marrow and spleen of Wistar rats of different ages were investigated. Stem cells were assayed by the spleen colony technique in irradiated rat recipients. The ability of the recipient spleen to harvest transplanted tissue as a macroscopic colony was found to be dependent on the recipient's age. Changes with senescence were observed also in the concentration and the size of the stem cell compartment both in the marrow and spleen. No differences were demonstrated in the seeding of transplanted colony-forming units into the spleen of recipients of 1 and 4 months of age. A rats-mice strain difference in the effect of senescence on the haemopoietic stem cells is discussed.     

ORGANIZATION OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS: THE GENERATION-AGE HYPOTHESIS

This paper proposes that the previous division history of each stem cell is one determinant of the functional organization of the haemopoietic stem cell population. Stem cells from a lineage of stem cells which have generated many stem cells (older stem cells) are used in the animal to form blood before stem cells which have generated few stem cells (younger stem cells). The stem cell generating capacity of a lineage of stem cells is finite. After a given number of generations a stem cell is lost to the stem cell compartment by forming two committed precursors of the cell lines. Its part in blood formation is taken by the next oldest stem cell. We have called this proposal the generation-age hypothesis. Experimental evidence in support of the proposal is presented. We stripped away older stem cells from normal bone marrow and 12 day foetal liver with phase-specific drugs and revealed a younger population of stem cells whose capacity for stem cell generation was three- to four-fold greater than that of the average normal, untreated population. We aged normal stem cells by continuous irradiation and serial retransplantation and found that their stem cell generative capacity had declined eight-fold. We measured the stem cell generative capacity of stem cells in the bloodstream. It was a half, to a quarter that of normal bone marrow stem cells and we found a subpopulation of circulating stem cells whose capacity for stem cell generation was an eighth to a fortieth that of normal femoral stem cells. This subpopulation was identified by its failure to express the brain-associated antigen which was present on 75% of normal femoral stem cells but was not found on their progeny, the committed precursors of granulocytes.     

HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS IN EXPERIMENTAL HAEMOLYTIC ANAEMIA

Phenylhydrazine treatment produced an expansion of spleen CFU (10 x N) and an even greater expansion of spleen ACFU (40 x N). Blood CFU and ACFU levels also increased. While marrow CFU did not change marrow ACFU showed a pronounced drop. The ratio of ACFU/CFU varied between tissues, it was highest in marrow and lowest in peripheral blood. The changes in CFU, ACFU and blood granulocytes are discussed in relation to the radioprotective action of phenylhydrazine pretreatment of mice.     

THE ENHANCEMENT OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELL RECOVERY IN IRRADIATED MICE BY PRIOR TREATMENT WITH CYCLOPHOSPHAMIDE

Studies are reported of the enhancement of stem cell recovery following whole body irradiation as a result of prior administration of cyclophosphamide. It is shown that the much larger enhancement of regeneration observed for the hosts own surviving stem cells, compared to the regeneration of injected bone marrow stem cells, is due to the different numbers of stem cells initiating the regeneration in conjunction with the time course of stem cell regeneration. The results show that the environmental changes produced by cyclophosphamide greatly enhance haemopoietic recovery even though at the dose used this agent is relatively toxic to stem cells. Furthermore it has been shown that the level of stem cell regeneration is nearly independent of the γ-ray dose in the range 3–8 gray (300–800 rad). If human bone marrow should respond similarly it follows that regeneration produced by cytotoxic drugs administered prior to radiation embodies a considerable safety factor as far as recovery of the haemopoietic system is concerned.     

天花粉对小鼠子宫肥大细胞超微结构的影响

本研究用雌性中国１号小鼠１２只,分实验组和对照组,实验组分别腹腔注射天花粉后处死,取子宫组织作超薄切片,电镜观察。在天花粉作用下,常见子宫肥大细胞脱颗粒,呈功能活化状态,并与子宫平滑肌细胞紧密相邻。提示肥大细胞可能通过脱颗粒释放组胺促进子宫平滑肌的收缩。同时,也见肥大细胞与子宫结缔组织中的成纤维细胞,淋巴细胞等密切接触,提示成纤维细胞和淋巴细胞与天花粉作用下子宫肥大细胞的数量增多有关。     

小鼠造血干细胞增殖与分化性能的研究

本文选择Ｙ染色体特异的性别决定基因作为新的细胞遗传标志,采用ＰＣＲ技术研究了小鼠造血干细胞的增殖与分化性能。将雄鼠骨髓细胞输注给经致死剂量射线照射的雌性受体小鼠、ＰＣＲ测试结果表明,所有ＣＦＵ－Ｓ均为供体起源。供体来源的ＣＦＵ－Ｓ在其输入体内后,可通过增殖,分化形成各系造血细胞,但ＣＦＵ－Ｓ中的纤维母细胞和ＣＦＵ－Ｓ重建造血后受体小鼠骨髓中的纤维母细胞均为受体起源。由此可见,小鼠骨髓中的ＣＦＣ－Ｓ     

A DEFICIENCY OF HEMATOPOIETIC STEM CELLS IN STEEL MICE

In the present study, population sizes of high self-renewal potential stem cells, i.e. colony forming units (CFU), and low self-renewal potential stem cells, i.e. transient endogenous colony forming units (TE-CFU) in Sl/Sl^d mice and their normal congenic littermates were measured and compared. By correcting for differences in the seeding efficiency ‘f’, it was possible to demonstrate that Sl/Sl^d mice suffer a deficiency of both stem cell populations. Therefore, it is concluded that the defective stromal tissue of the Sl/Sl^d mouse does not support normal size stem cell populations. However, as noted in the discussion, it remains an open question as to whether the defective stromal tissue supports normal erythroid differentiation at the stem cell level.     

SOME COMPARISONS OF THE KINETIC PROPERTIES OF FEMORAL AND SPLENIC HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS

A slightly different radiosensitivity is confirmed between colony forming units (CFU) in the femur as opposed to those of the spleen. The recovery pattern of the CFU in the femur and in the spleen following sublethal doses of radiation can be markedly different, depending on the radiation dose, particularly concerning the postirradiation ‘dip’. The turnover state of splenic CFU appears to be greater in normal animals than that of the femoral CFU. Hypertransfusion doubles the splenic CFU by the fourth day, while only marginally affecting femoral CFU. Erythropoietin, while increasing the CFU turnover significantly in both femur and spleen of the polycythaemic animal, also increases femoral but not splenic CFU.     

MOBILIZATION OF HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS (CFU) INTO THE PERIPHERAL BLOOD OF THE MOUSE; EFFECTS OF ENDOTOXIN AND OTHER COMPOUNDS

Factors affecting the circulation of haemopoietic stem cells (CFU) in the peripheral blood of mice were investigated. I.v. injection of sublethal doses of endotoxin, trypsin and proteinase appeared to raise the number of CFU per ml blood from about 30–40 to about 300–400 or more within 10 min. The effect was smaller when smaller doses of the substances were injected. After this initial rise the number of circulating cells returned to normal in a few hours. Following endotoxin there was a second rise which started 2–3 days after injection and attained a peak on the 6th–7th day. The first rise is explained as a mobilization of stem cells from their normal microenvironments into the blood stream; the second rise is considered to reflect proliferation of CFUs in the haemopoietic tissues. The spleen seems to be acting as an organ capturing CFUs from the blood and not as a source adding stem cells to the blood.
The early mobilization of CFU after endotoxin injection did not coincide with a mobilization of neutrophils. The number of circulating band cells was increased during the first hours.
The importance of 'open sites'in the haemopoietic tissue for capturing CFUs was studied by emptying these sites through a lethal X-irradiation and injecting normal bone marrow cells. When a greater number of syngeneic bone marrow cells was injected intravenously, the level of circulating CFU in irradiated mice was slightly lower than the level in unirradiated mice during the first hours.     

EFFECTS OF HUMAN LEUKOCYTE CONDITIONED MEDIUM ON MOUSE HAEMOPOIETIC PROGENITOR CELLS

Medium conditioned by human peripheral blood leukocytes (HLCM) was studied for its in vitro effects on haemopoietic progenitor cells (CFU-s and CFU-c) present in mouse bone marrow. HLCM has poor colony stimulating activity in semi-solid cultures of mouse bone marrow cells. but invariably increases the number of colonies obtained in the presence of plateau levels of semi-purified colony stimulating factor (CSF). In liquid cultures, HLCM appears to contain a potent initiator of DNA synthesis in CFU-s. an activity which coincides with an increased CFU-s maintenance and causes a three- to four-fold increase in CFU-c number. It is apparent from this study that HLCM, in addition to stimulating colony formation in cultures of human bone marrow cells, has a profound in vitro effect on primitive haemopoietic progenitor cells of the mouse, which cannot be attributed to CSF.     

COLONY FORMATION IN AGAR: IN VITRO ASSAY FOR HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELLS

Using a method in which embryo fibroblasts were used as feeder layers, the colony forming capacity in agar of a variety of mouse haemopoietic suspensions was compared with their CFU s content. A striking parallelism between the results of the two assays was found. In addition, under certain conditions higher numbers of CFU s could be retrieved from 5-day-old agar colonies than were originally plated, indicating that the CFC a (Colony Forming Cell agar) may fulfil the requirements of pluripotency as well as of self-renewal, both prerequisites for any haemopoietic stem cell candidate. Although our data by no means provide direct proof that the CFC s and the CFC a are identical, they certainly support such a concept. the contradictory findings by others that CFU s and CFU c (Colony Forming Unit culture) can be separated on a velocity gradient is attributed to different culture conditions, in other words, that their CFU cè are not identical with our CFU a .
Our findings also indicate that for mouse cells our soft agar colony assay meets the criteria of a quantitative assay for haemopoietic stem cells and that extension of this technique to bone marrow of primates including humans seems to be justified.     

KINETICS OF HAEMOPOIETIC RECOVERY IN ENDOTOXIN-TREATED MICE

Kinetics of mouse spleen colony forming units were studied after intra-peritoneal injection of 1 μ/g body weight bacterial endotoxin S. typhosa. When these mice were used as unirradiated and sublethally irradiated donors, it was possible to study the effect of the endotoxin injection upon the cells. Use of the treated mice as irradiated recipients of normal cells gave information about the host effect. In treated unirradiated mice, the total nucleated cell and the CFU counts were disturbed, and 2 days later a large fraction of the CFU were found in the DNA synthesis (S) phase. This meant that injection of endotoxin generated factors affecting the kinetics of the CFU and triggering the resting CFU into the proliferative cycle. If then the mice were given supralethal irradiation and used as recipients of normal bone marrow cells, more CFU seeded to the spleen as compared to normal recipients; but the dip and the growth rate of the CFU were not changed. Hence the endotoxin-generated factors had been eliminated in 2 days. A total body sublethal irradiation by 400 rad X-ray 2 days after endotoxin injection reduced the post-irradiation dip in the recovery curve of the CFU, indicating that though the factors affecting the cell kinetics had been eliminated, the cycling CFU behaved like a growing population. During the first week, the growth rate of the CFU remained the same as in control irradiated mice. The growth rate of the spleen CFU of the endotoxin-treated mice slowed down during the second week, and their self-replicating ability was low. Fluctuations in the DNA synthesizing fraction of the spleen CFU suggested a variability in the ratio of the length of the S phase and the cell generation time.     

THE ROLE OF THE SPLEEN IN THE REPOPULATION OF THE HAEMOPOIETIC SYSTEM OF HEAVILY-IRRADIATED MICE

The respective role of the spleen or of the bone marrow in the regeneration of the haemopoietic progenitor compartment of heavily-irradiated mice has been investigated. Splenectomy was used to this end in animals injected with exogenous isogenic cells or regenerating from endogenous spleen or marrow cells. Analysis of the data as a function of time shows that the presence of the spleen affects marrow CFU repopulation only at the early post-irradiation stages. The expansion of the marrow progenitor pool proceeds, however, rather independently of the spleen and marrow CFU remain eventually as the main source of haemopoietic cells in the surviving mice. Thus the reaction of the spleen may be envisaged as a fast, important but transient contribution to the overall haemopoietic function of heavily-irradiated animals.     

THE EFFECT OF PARTIAL BODY IRRADIATION ON HAEMOPOIETIC STEM CELL MIGRATION

Data obtained after various types of partial body irradiation support the concept of a small rapidly exchangeable pool of CFUs, which seems to be exhausted rapidly after irradiation. The depletion of this pool is the most plausible explanation for the decrease in stem cell migration observed 3 hr after exposure in C₃H mice. After partial body irradiation the size of the rapidly mobilizable pool is reduced in proportion to the areas of bone marrow irradiated. When only one marrow area is shielded, the recovery of this pool does not occur during the first 24 hr after exposure.     

TEMPERATURE EFFECTS ON THE KINETICS OF SPERMATOGENESIS IN THE MOUSE

The kinetics of spermatocyte differentiation in adult mice was measured under normal conditions, during maintenance at elevated temperatures and following experimental cryptorchidism. For these measurements the development of ³H-TdR labelled testis cells was followed by velocity sedimentation at unit gravity and the results were in agreement with those obtained by autoradiography. In the cryptorchid animals and those maintained at 32°C the kinetics of spermatogenesis during treatment was increased by at least 13% over control values. Smaller but significant increases in the kinetics of spermatogenesis were obtained at ambient temperatures of 28 and 30°C without any observable histological damage. The increased kinetics is believed to be a direct effect of temperature on testis cell development.