Separation of hemopoietic stem cells of low self-renewal capacity from mouse bone marrow

A simple technique to concentrate hemopoietic stem cells (colony-forming unit in spleen, CFUs) on a ficoll-triosil gradient, permitting an enrichment of the stem cells from mouse bone marrow by a factor of 10, was developed. The proportion of the enriched cells engaged in DNA synthesis was shown to be around 40%. The self-renewal capacity of the enriched stem cells was significantly lower than that of the total stem cells in normal mouse bone marrow. The separated stem cells may correspond to CFUs-2.