A stromal cell line from myeloid long-term bone marrow cultures can support myelopoiesis and B lymphopoiesis.

The production of B lymphocytes and myeloid cells occurs in the bone marrow in association with a supporting population of stromal cells. To determine whether these processes are dependent upon the same or different populations of stromal cells, stromal cell lines were generated from the adherent layer of a Dexter type long-term bone marrow culture. These cultures support myeloid cells and their precursors, a B cell precursor, and the adherent layer cells with support B cell differentiation under appropriate conditions. Two of the lines examined, S10 and S17, express class I histocompatibility antigens but not other hemopoietic cell surface determinants such as Thy-1, Lyt-1, Ig, Ia, Mac-1, or BP-1. Both lines could support myelopoiesis under Dexter conditions upon seeding with nylon wool-passed bone marrow. The nylon wool passage depletes stromal cells capable of forming adherent layers in vitro but retains hemopoietic precursors. The number of cells and colony-forming units-granulocytes/macrophages in the nonadherent cell population recovered 3 wk post-seeding had increased 19-fold and 10-fold, respectively, in the reseeded cultures of S10 and S17. After 3 wk of growth in Dexter conditions, the reseeded cultures were transferred to conditions optimal for B cell differentiation described by Whitlock and Witte. After 4 wk of growth, hemopoietic cells were consistently recovered from S17 cultures but not those of S10. A proportion of these cells from S17 cultures expressed the 14.8 antigen and were surface IgM positive. Surviving hemopoietic cells present in cultures of S10 were primarily macrophages. These findings indicate that S17 but not S10 can support both myelopoiesis and B lymphopoiesis and suggest that one stromal cell population has the capacity to form a hemopoietic microenvironment for both lineages.