An anionic material at the advancing front of blood cells entering the bone marrow circulation

The selective entry of mature blood cells into the peripheral circulation of the bone marrow is a transcellular process. The mature blood cells penetrate the cytoplasm of the endothelial cells lining the myeloid sinuses and form a migration pore in the cell body of the lining cell, which closes after the blood cell reaches the intravascular space. The changes at the surfaces of the cells involved in this selective transcellular process were studied by means of the cationic cell surface markers colloidal iron (CI) and polycationic (high isoelectric point) ferritin (PCF). The anionic cell surface charges resulting from the presence of sialated glycoproteins remain, as shown by the application of these markers at low pH (1.8), evenly distributed at the cell surfaces of both the blood cell and the sinus lining cell. However, there is at the advancing margin of the diapedesing blood cells a marked accumulation of a nonsialated anionic material binding PCF at high pH (7.2). This material first accumulates extravascularly beneath the endothelium at an area of the blood cell surface near the site of the migration pore formation, remains at the cell surface during the initial phases of transcellular passage and disappears, either through shedding in the vascular lumen or through redistribution on the cell surface, when the cell reaches the intravascular space. This anionic material, which is neuraminidase resistant and has a pKa higher than sialic acid, is a characteristic concommitant in the selective transcellular blood cell passage in bone marrow.