Autoinduction of differentiation in wehi‐3B leukemia cells

Abstract

Cells of the differentiation‐responsive mouse myelomonocytic leukemia cell line WEHI‐3B D+ form colonies in agar exhibiting a low frequency of spontaneous differentiation mainly in the macrophage pathway. Compared with undifferentiated colonies, spontaneously differentiating colonies have a reduced content of clonogenic cells and surviving clonogenic cells tend themselves to form differentiating colonies, both being characteristics of differentiated colonies induced by the regulator, granulocyte colony‐stimulating factor, G‐CSF. Colony crowding increased the frequency of spontaneously differentiating colonies and WEHI‐3B D+ colony cells were shown to release material able to induce different..