Migration of stem cells and progenitors between marrow and spleen following thiamphenicol treatment of mice

Recovery of hemopoiesis was studied after a 3-day treatment with the antibiotic thiamphenicol (TAP). A contrasting behavior of the spleen colony-forming units (CFU-S), granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming units (CFU-GM), erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E), and erythroid colony-forming units (CFU-E) numbers in the bone marrow versus those in the spleen was found. Whereas the cell numbers reached nadirs in the marrow, they peaked 30 to 100-fold above control values in the spleen on day 4. Simultaneously the number of CFU-S, BFU-E, and CFU-GM, but not of CFU-E, increased drastically in the peripheral blood. The tritiated thymidine kill of the splenic CFU-S was too small to explain the endogenous splenic production of these cells. A quantitative analysis further revealed that an effective erythropoiesis was established in the spleen. As a consequence, the first part of a reticulocytosis was mainly due to the splenic contribution, whereas the second part predominantly originated from a delayed marrow erythropoiesis. In contrast, the CFU-GM of the spleen did not effectively differentiate into granuloid precursors. The bulk of the granuloid production occurred in the marrow. The best explanation for these results is a net migration of CFU-S, BFU-E, and CFU-GM from the marrow to the spleen during early recovery, and a back-migration of CFU-GM to the marrow later in the recovery phase. These observations indicate a link between migration of hemopoietic cells and their differentiation at the two hemopoietic sites.