| Abstract: | Human bone marrow derived fibroblast colony-
;forming cells (F-CFU) and granulocytemacrophage
colony-forming cells (GM-CFU) were simultaneously
studied by liquid and semi-solid agar culture in 26
normal individuals and 33 hematological disorders
iii 13 patients with aplastic anemia, 9 acute non
lymphocytic leukemia, 6 acute Iymphocytic leukemia
and 5 malignant lymphoma. After 2 weeks of liquid
culture, the growth rates and morphological charac
teristics of F-CFU from aplastic and leukemic mar
rows did not differ markedly from the normal, except
that patient groups show a wider range of colony
number. The F-CFU incidence in patients with
malignant lymphoma was lower than normal. Growth
of GM-CFU from patients with aplastic anemia and
Ieukemia was very poor.
GM-CFU stimulation was not detected iii any
supernatants of F-CFU cultures. Confluent mono
layers of fibroblast cells grown from normal and
aplastic marrow could directly stimulate the growth
cf GM-CFU of normal marrow cells and little GM-
CFU was observed in areas lacking fibroblast cells.
Fibroblast monolayers derived from acute leukemic
marrows were poor stimulators of GM-CFU, this
abnormality in interactions between stromal cells and
hematopoietic progenitors may be important in the
pathogenesis and clinical manifestation of leukemia.
This study suggests that bone marrow fibroblast
cells may directly affect hematopoietic stem cell
proliferation and differentiation and supports the
hypothesis that marrow fibrosis observed in patients
with leukemia is of non-ncoplastic origin and may
be a reactive phenomenon. Analysis of the pathoge-
nesis of aplastic patients with defective hematopoie
tic microenvironments may be possible. |
