[Biological properties of the colony-promoting activity in extracts prepared from murine kidney]

Aqueous extracts prepared from the murine kidney (MKE) promoted colony formation derived from murine hematopoietic progenitor cells in serum-free cultures stimulated by interleukin-3 (IL-3) and erythropoietin (Epo). MKE itself did not stimulate any colony formation. MKE preferentially enhanced granulocyte-macrophage colony forming units (CFU-GM), but did not promote any erythroid colony formation. The CFU-GM colony promotion by MKE was observed at day 6 after the culture started, and the colony-promoting activity (CPA) was maintained at the same level until day 16. MKE showed no CPA in the cultures using cells obtained from 5-FU-injected mice and from c-kit(+)-enriched treatment. Furthermore, MKE acted synergistically with granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor (CSF), macrophage-CSF, IL-6 and IL-11 on colony formation, but did not act with GM-CSF, stem cell factor and Epo. From the results of various experiments and gel-filtration chromatography, it is estimated that the colony-promoting factor detected in MKE is a heat stable protein with about 20 KDa molecular weight. These results suggest that MKE promotes colony formation by murine myeloid progenitor cells, and that the target cell populations of MKE are relatively mature in the hematopoietic differentiation pathway.