Bone marrow fibroblast function in relation to granulopoiesis in aplastic anaemia

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Abstract
Fibroblasts grown from the bone marrow of normal individuals and incubated with colony-stimulating factor (CSF) enhance the stimulating activity of this CSF on granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming cell (GM-CFC) proliferation. The ability of fibroblast monolayers grown from the marrows of 6 patients with severe aplastic anemia to increase the activity of CSF was compared with the activity of normal fibroblasts. Tests of this function showed subnormal CSF-enhancing activity by fibroblasts grown from the marrows of 3 of the 6 aplastic patients. Since cultured bone marrow fibroblasts are thought to represent an important component of the hemopoietic microenvironment, some of the patients apparently had a microenvironmental abnormality at the time of study. One of the patients whose fibroblasts were abnormal was reinvestigated after he was given a graft of allogeneic bone marrow cells. His postgraft fibroblast function was normal, showing that the abnormality was reversible.