The Concentration of Granulocytic Stem Cells in Mouse Bone Marrow, Determined with Diffusion Chamber Technique

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The present paper describes a technique for determining the concentration of granulocytic stem cells by culturing mouse bone marrow cells in diffusion chambers, intraperitoneally.In chambers which initially contain no stem cells, all the young cells differentiate towards the granulocyte compartment. After a culture period of 6–7 days, these chambers contain either no granulocytic cells, or mature granulocytes only. These chamber are defined as ‘empty’: In chambers which initially contain stem cells, there is a continuous supplying with young cells from the stem cell level, and after a culture period of 7 days, the chambers contain all types of granulocytic cells. We diluted the marrow until we got some ‘empty’ chambers and determined the fraction, P(o), of ‘empty’ chambers. If the average stem cell number per chamber in a series of chambers is δ, then it follows from the Poisson probability law that, δ = ‐ 1nP(o).With this technique we found that C3H × DBA mice had 1 effective granulocytic stem cell per 2,000 bone marrow cells. In white, outbred mice we found average values ranging from 1 stem cell per 2,700 bone marrow cells to 1 per 4,900. These variations were possibly due to seasonal factors.