Recombinant alpha-interferon inhibits colony formation of bone marrow fibroblast progenitor cells (CFU-F).

Alpha-Interferon (IFN-alpha) has been shown to inhibit colony formation of hematopoietic progenitor cells, including colony-forming unit-granulocyte, erythroid, macrophage, megakaryocyte (CFU-GEMM), day 7 colony-forming unit granulocyte-macrophage (CFU-GM), day 14 CFU-GM, burst-forming unit erythroid (BFU-E), pluripotent stem cells (CFU-S), and colony-forming unit megakaryocyte (CFU-MK). The present study was designed to see whether IFN-alpha also has inhibitory effects on bone marrow fibroblast progenitors (CFU-F). We found that IFN-alpha exerted a significant inhibitory effect on both rabbit and human CFU-F formation. Inhibition of human marrow CFU-F formation by alpha interferon was unaffected by removal of 98% of monocytes/macrophages and T lymphocytes from light density marrow cells. This finding suggests that IFN-alpha probably exerts a direct inhibitory effects.