Stem cell migration induced by erythropoietin or haemolytic anaemia: the effects of actinomycin and endotoxin contamination of erythropoietin preparations.

The injection of erythropoietin or the induction of anaemia with phenylhydrazine leads to changes in murine pluripotent and granulocyte-macrophage stem cells indicating migration from marrow to spleen. In order to evaluate the interrelationship between erythroid differentiation and stem cell migration we have selectively suppressed erythroid differentiation with actinomycin D. Anaemia or EP injection resulted in stem cell changes consistent with migration; actinomycin blocked these changes in anaemic but not EP injected mice while blocking erythropoiesis in both groups. The erythropoietin contained from 0.01 to 1000 microgram/ml of endotoxin as defined by the limulus test; it decreased marrow erythropoiesis and stimulated marrow granulopoiesis. Adsorption of the erythropoietin preparation with limulus lysate removed endotoxin without decreasing erythropoietin activity. Adsorbed erythropoietin stimulated erythropoiesis and not granulopoiesis, and stem cell changes induced by its administration were largely blocked by actinomycin, suggesting that endotoxin in the non-adsorbed erythropoietin caused the actinomycin resistant stem cell changes. The observation that actinomycin blocks both erythroid differentiation and stem cell migration suggests that these two physiologic events are closely linked. The effects of injected erythropoietin on murine haemopoietic stem cells may, to a significant extent, be secondary to the presence of endotoxin in the erythropoietin preparations.