Differences in the kinetics of histamine formation and granulation of human basophilic cells from bone marrow, peripheral blood, and cord blood.

Human bone marrow, cord blood, and peripheral blood contain progenitor cells, which during culture mature to histamine-containing basophilic cells. In bone marrow the histamine content per Alcian blue staining basophilic cell was low before culture. Cultivation of BML cells resulted in increased histamine levels in cultures (P less than 0.05), whereas the basophilic cells did not increase significantly. Cell cultures were stimulated with conditioned medium (CM) produced with allergen-stimulated cells from atopics and from the Mo T leukaemic cell line. Cells from cultures stimulated with CM contained less histamine calculated per basophilic cell than did those from unstimulated cultures (P less than 0.05). There was a significant correlation between the numbers of basophilic cells and the histamine content in cells on day 0 prior to cultivation and after 14 days of cultivation (P less than 0.01 and P less than 0.05 respectively). In cord blood there was a correlation between the numbers of basophilic cells and the histamine levels prior to cultivation (P less than 0.05). During cultivation the number of basophilic cells increased five-fold (P less than 0.02), whereas the histamine levels did not increase resulting in a decreased histamine level per basophilic cell (P less than 0.02). In peripheral blood the basophilic cells contained the highest levels of histamine. The numbers of basophilic cells and their content of histamine showed good correlation both before and after unstimulated and stimulated cultivation (P less than 0.01), whereas unstimulated cultures did not show such correlation. The results indicate the presence of different proportions of progenitor cells in bone marrow, cord blood, and peripheral blood, all with different ability to produce histamine and become granulated basophilic cells.