Isolation of a murine osteoclast colony-stimulating factor

Cultures of a cell line derived from a murine mammary carcinoma that induces hypercalcemia were examined for soluble products that could induce osteoclasts to differentiate from murine bone marrow cells. The serum-free culture supernatant of this cell line stimulated growth of colonies from bone marrow cells that exhibited tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAPase) activity. These TRAPase-positive cells demonstrated essential features of osteoclasts when cultured with mineralized bone or dentin. The culture period required for colony development and the frequency of colony-forming cells indicated that relatively primitive marrow progenitors were stimulated by a tumor-derived factor(s) to form immature osteoclasts. Other colony-stimulating factors (CSFs), including granulocyte CSF, macrophage CSF, granulocyte-macrophage CSF and interleukin 3, were ruled out as the source of the activity produced by the tumor cells. The biological activity was successfully purified by gel filtration chromatography and reverse-phase HPLC. By SDS/PAGE, the activity was traced to a protein of approximately 17 kDa. Functional and biochemical studies of the purified factor suggest that it is distinct from any known CSF of myeloid cells. This protein appears to be a CSF for the osteoclast lineage, osteoclast CSF (O-CSF).