Abstract
Since hematopoiesis in the human embryonic liver is almost exclusively erythropoietic, without any appreciable evidence for granulopoiesis, it was attempted to demonstrate granulocytic progenitor cells in this organ, by virtue of their capacity to fora in vitro granulocytic-Monocytio colonies in soft agar cultures. 31 human embryos were obtained by interruptions of pregnancies at 6-12 weeks of gestation. Liver cell suspensions were seeded in soft agar over feeder layers composed of normal hunan leukocytes. Colonies were counted end examined by morphologic, cytochemical and electron microscopic methods following 1 days of incubation. A donning yield of 60 ± 28 colonies/2×105 cells seeded was obtained in the stimulated, and none in the non-stimulated cultures, comparable to the findings in cultures of adult human marrows. No significant variations in the growth rates of the colonies at different gestational ages were observed. A layer of mononuclear cells was obtained by fractionation of the liver cell suspension over Ficoll-hypaque gradient, Which yielded a 5 to 10 fold increment in the clonning efficiency. While only scarce granulocytio and monocytic elements were detected in the liver cell suspension prior to culture, the colonies obtained were almost exclusively granulocytio with normal maturation as was evident by cytochemical and electron microscopic parameters. These studies have shown that huaan embryonic liver at 6-12 weeks of gestation contains an abundancy of granulocytic progenitor cells comparable to adult marrow in their quantity, density, dependence on colony stimulating factor and capacity to differentiate into their mature progeny. The possible potentiality of human embryonic liver for human hematopoietic cell transplantation is suggested by these results.
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Barak, Y., Karov, Y., Lancet, M. et al. GRANULOPOIESIS IN THE HUMAN EMBRYONIC LIVER: DETECTION OF GRANULOCYTIC PROGENITOR CELLS BY IN VITRO METHODS. Pediatr Res 12, 63 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197801000-00020
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-197801000-00020