Bone marrow lipids in normal and anemic mice

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Abstract
The lipids in the bone marrow of six strains of normal mice, and mice with genetically determined anemias (W/Wv and S1/S1d) and experimentally induced anemia were analyzed. Cholesterol and phospholipid accounted for 60–75% of total lipid; the remainder was triglyceride and neutral glyceryl ether lipids. In mice with phenylhydrazine (PHZ)‐induced hemolytic anemia there was a threefold increase in neutral glyceryl ether lipids immediately preceding a twofold increase in recognizable erythroid precursors. Comparisons were made between the femoral bone marrow and the cells maintained in the adherent populations of long‐term bone marrow cultures. In cultures of B6D2F1 bone marrow (which support long‐term proliferation and differentiation of hemopoietic stem cells) the adherent layers contained the same lipids as freshly aspirated bone marrow. In W/Wv and S1/S1d cultures (which duplicate, respectively, the stem cell and environmental defect found in vivo) the lipid content of the adherent layers differed from bone marrow, particularly in the absence of ether‐containing lipids. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that marrow lipids have an active (as opposed to passive) role in murine hemopoiesis and indicate that long‐term bone marrow culture may prove useful in further biochemical studies of the hemopoietic inductive microenvironment.