Acidic isoferritins do not suppress differentiation of mouse myeloid leukemic M1 cells.

The differentiation of mouse myeloid leukemia line cells (M1) into macrophages or granulocytes has been reported. Resistant M1 cells which did not differentiate even with a high concentration of inducer of differentiation were isolated from M1 cells. The conditioned medium of the resistant M1 cells (RCM) inhibited the induction of differentiation of M1 cells and the formation of macrophage and granulocyte colonies of normal mouse bone marrow cells. Acidic isoferritins known as negative regulators of normal bone marrow cells (CFU-GM) failed to inhibit the induction of differentiation and growth of M1 cells. The RCM treated with anti-acidic isoferritin serum could inhibit the induction of differentiation of M1 cells as did the untreated RCM. The activities, in RCM, inhibiting growth and differentiation of the normal bone marrow cells were partly neutralized by treatment with the antiserum but most of the activities remained. These results suggest that growth and differentiation of the mouse myeloid leukemia M1 cells are not regulated by acidic isoferritins and other inhibitory activities affecting normal bone marrow colony formation, in addition to acidic isoferritins, are released from M1 cells.