Stimulation of granulocytic colony formation in agar diffusion chambers implanted in cyclophosphamide pretreated mice

The growth of mouse bone marrow colonies in agar diffusion chambers (ADCs) was evaluated using host mice injected with saline or with cyclophosphamide (CY) before chamber insertion. The mice pretreated with cyclophosphamide proved more effective hosts than control (saline pretreated) mice, indicating that cyclophosphamide causes the elaboration of a stimulating factor acting on colony precursor cells. Assays of the factor for colony stimulating activity against mouse bone marrow cells in agar culture in vitro suggest that potentiation may be due to a slight temporary increase in the level of colony stimulating factor (CSF) in the chamber environment, although a parallel increase was not detected in the serum. Stem cell recovery from the ADCs, measured by spleen colony formation, suggests that the stimulus may act by increasing differentiation at the level of the pluripotential stem cell.