Mixed colony formation in vitro by the heterogeneous compartment of multipotential progenitors in human bone marrow

The physiology of the human haemopoietic primitive progenitor populations can be studied in normal and disease states by clonal in vitro cultures in which the primitive progenitor cells proliferate and differentiate to form mixed colonies. For many applications it is essential that such assays detect a high proportion of primitive progenitor cells. We describe an in vitro assay which detects a high incidence of human CD34+ multipotential progenitor cells. Bone marrow mononuclear cells (MNC) or selected CD34+ cells were plated at low cell concentrations in semisolid agar cultures with synergizing growth factor combinations. The optimum growth factor combination of conditioned medium from Mia PaCa-2 cells (Mia-CM), recombinant granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and recombinant stem cell factor (SCF) supported the formation of macroscopic (> or = mm) colonies (97% of which were multilineage), at an average incidence of 250/10(5) MNC. The colony-forming cells (human colony-forming unit, type A) detected, showed a low cycling status (7.3%) and the macroscopic colonies had a high replating efficiency (46%), reflecting their probable primitive nature. This assay should prove invaluable, for studies on the regulation of proliferation of the multipotential compartment and in studies involving the assessment of these cells in transplantation and neoplastic disease.