Enhanced lymphoid and decreased myeloid reconstituting ability of stem cells from long-term cultures of mouse bone marrow.

Mature, functional lymphocytes rapidly disappear from long-term cultures of mouse bone marrow cells and never reappear. One reason for the loss of B lymphocytes is that the optimal culture conditions for maintenance of myeloid stem cells are suboptimal for lymphocyte survival. However, despite the absence of functional lymphocytes, stem cells from such cultures retain the ability to reconstitute irradiated mice with mitogen-responsive B and T lymphocytes. In fact, in vitro grown stem cells repopulate the lymphoid system better than the myeloid system; the defective myeloid potential does not result from the absence in the cultures of Thy--1 bearing regulatory cells (TSRC). Although the cultures lack mature lymphocytes, they contain putative T cell precursors detectable with an in vitro colony-forming assay (CFU-T). In vitro maintenance of CFU-T requires an appropriate adherent monolayer. Monolyaters from congenitally anemic mice of genotype Sl/Sld fail to support either myeloid precursors or CFU-T.