Suiciding of lymphocytic precursor cells by tritiated nucleosides, in vitro.

Differences in suiciding by various tritiated nucleosides were observed between two functional assays for in vitro lymphocytic precursor cell development, the hemolysin plaque-forming cell (PFC) assay and the B lymphocytic colony-forming cell (CFC-L) assay, using BDF1 mouse spleen cells. PFC growth was markedly reduced by an early (days 0-1) pulse of tritiated deoxyadenosine ([3H]dAdo), but relatively unaffected by a pulse of tritiated thymidine ([3H]dThd) during the same interval. In contrast, CFC-L formation significantly dropped after an early (day 0) [3H]dThd pulse, as well as after pulses of [3H]dAdo and the corresponding tritiated ribosides, uridine and adenosine. This implied a cycling state in an early lymphocytic precursor cell, as opposed to the PFC insensitivity to an early [3H]dThd pulse. The response pattern of colonies and clusters to [3H]dThd supported our notion of a delayed suiciding of CFC contributing to the increase in cluster numbers.