Regulation of splenic CFU-S kinetics after cytosine arabinoside treatment in mice II. In vitro studies: long-range modulators of the splenic CFU-S.

A single injection of 20 mg of Ara-C to mice provokes an acceleration of splenic CFU-S differentiation, followed by their entry in DNA synthesis. In this protocol, splenic CFU-S are induced to differentiate preferentially towards erythropoiesis. The present studies show that substances secreted by spleen cells from Ara-C treated mice are responsible for the modifications in the splenic CFU-S population. This indicates that splenic CFU-S kinetics is under the control of pluripoietins as previously demonstrated for marrow CFU-S. The serum of Ara-C treated mice is shown to have stimulating effects on splenic CFU-S as well as on medullary CFU-S proliferation. It also has the capacity of channelling the differentiation of both splenic and medullar CFU-S towards erythroid lineage. These data suggest the existence of long-range humoral regulators for both populations of CFU-S.