Effects of tumor necrosis factor-alpha on normal feline hematopoietic progenitor cells

The effects of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) on feline bone marrow hematopoietic progenitors were evaluated by exposing bone marrow mononuclear cells from specific pathogen-free cats to different concentrations of TNF-alpha (ranging from 50 to 800 pg/ml) for 2 h before plating for clonal assays of colony-forming units. TNF-alpha caused a dose-dependent suppression of feline erythroid colony-forming units (CFU-E) and erythroid burst-forming units (BFU-E), whereas granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming units (CFU-GM) were minimally affected. TNF-alpha concentrations as low as 200 pg/ml significantly inhibited growth of erythroid progenitors. Addition of polyclonal rabbit anti-TNF-alpha antibodies completely neutralized the suppressive effect of TNF-alpha on erythroid progenitors. At higher concentrations of TNF-alpha (800 pg/ml), 35% of CFU-E and 21% of BFU-E still survived, indicating that some erythroid progenitors are not sensitive to a single exposure of TNF-alpha in vitro. These results suggest that TNF-alpha may play a role in regulating hematopoiesis in cats and may be involved in the pathogenesis of erythroid aplasia in cats infected with feline leukemia virus.