Lymphocyte culture: induction of colonies by conditioned medium from human lymphoid cell lines

The presence of phytohemagglutinin or pokeweed mitogen in cultures of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells in agar is known to stimulate the formation of lymphoid colonies. We now report that similar colonies can be induced in the absence of plant lectins upon addition of filtered and ultracentrifuged conditioned medium (CM) obtained from certain human lymphoblastoid cell lines. Colony formation required at least 6 X 10(5) mononuclear cells per milliliter, and optimum results were obtained at concentrations of 1 X 10(6) cells/ml in the presence of 20% CM (50-500 colonies per 10(6) cells cultured). Individual cells within colonies displayed uniform morphological characteristics of lymphoid cells, and the majority formed rosettes with sheep erythrocytes, suggesting that they were of T-cell type.