Novel growth promoting activity with a wide target cell spectrum is present in extracts of various cell types.

Cell extracts from a variety of cell lines, myeloid, T, B, mastocytoma, fibroblast, melanoma and breast carcinoma of human, mouse and guinea pig promoted the growth of a wide variety of cell types, namely human myeloid cells HL-60, human B cells Daudi, human melanoma cells A375-C6, mouse transformed-fibroblast cells L929, human myelomonocytic cells THP-1. Among them, the activities in extracts from U937, A375-C6 and Daudi were characterized because these extracts exhibited much more potent activity. These growth promoting activities were acid-labile, sensitive to 2-mercaptoethanol and to heat treatment at 50C or 70C for 5 min. The activities were also sensitive to proteases indicating the proteinous nature of these active entities. The molecular weight of activities from A375 and Daudi cells were estimated to be 100,000-150,000 daltons by gel filtration high performance liquid chromatography, while that from U937 cells was 60,000-70,000 daltons. The isoelectric point of these activities were 5.5-6.5.