The production of committed hemopoietic colony-forming cells from multipotential precursor cells in vitro

Abstract

Murine fetal level cells have been fractionated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting into two fractions termed, for convenience, the pre-CFC and CFC (colony-forming cell) fractions, which differ in their relative binding of the lectin, pokeweed mitogen. The CFC fraction contained a high frequency of CFC (26%) and in liquid cultures stimulated with colony-stimulating factors generated large numbers of differentiated progeny. Consequently, residual CFC could not be detected in such cultures after day 4. In contrast, the pre-CFC fraction contained relatively few CFC (1%) but contained the majority of CFU-S and was able to generate large numbers of new CFC after 5-7 days in liquid culture. Thi..