Terence Allen

A liquid culture system is described whereby proliferation of haemopoietic stem cells (CFU-S), production of granulocyte precursor cells (CFU-C), and extensive granulopoiesis can be maintained in vetro for several months. Such cultures consist of adherent and non-adherent populations of cells. The adherent population contains phagocytic mononuclear cells, "epithelial" cells, and "giant fat" cells. The latter appear to be particularly important for stem cell maintenance and furthermore there is a strong tendency for maturing granulocytes to selectively cluster in and around areas of "giant fat" cell aggregations. By "feeding" the cultures at weekly intervals, between 10 to 15 "population doublings" of functionally normal CFU-S regularly occurs. Increased "population doublings" may be obtained by feeding twice weekly. The cultures show initially extensive granulopoiesis followed, in a majority of cases, by an accumulation of blast cells. Eventually both blast cells and granulocytes decline and the cultures contain predominantly phagocytic mononuclear cells. Culturing at 33 degrees C leads to the development of a more profuse growth of adherent cells and these cultures show better maintenance of stem cells and increased cell density. When tested for colony stimulating activity (CSA) the cultures were uniformly negative. Addition of exogenous CSA caused a rapid decline in stem cells, reduced granulopoiesis and an accumulation of phagocytic mononuclear cells.

When freshly isolated rabbit marrow cells were cultured either in vitro or in diffusion chambers in vivo, the hemopoietic cells disappeared and there was a proliferation of the stromal cell population. The colonies formed in vitro were mainly fibroblastic, and this cell type predominated in confluent cultures. Staining for alkaline phosphatase activity and for the Von Kossa reaction was negative in in vitro cultures. However, marrow cell suspensions or fibroblasts harvested from in vitro culture of marrow cells, gave rise to a mixture of bone, cartilage and fibrous tissue in diffusion chambers implanted into the peritoneal cavity. In contrast, only a soft fibrous tissue developed from spleen fibroblasts in diffusion chambers. Differentiation of osteogenic tissue within diffusion chambers fell into two categories: (1) Formation of bone in a fibrous layer surrounding cartilage; (2) intramembranous bone formed directly within fibrous tissue unassociated with cartilage. In both cases alkaline phosphatase activity appeared before the onset of mineralization, and decreased as the first signs of mineral became apparent. The present results suggest that postnatal marrow contains osteogenic precursors with the potential to differentiate via either of the two major paths followed during skeletal development in the embryo. Clonal analysis of the marrow stromal cell population will be required to clarify whether osteo-, chondro-, and fibrogenic cells are the products of one stromal cell line modulated by the microenvironment, or whether there are distinct cell lines for each type.

ABSTRACT The enclosure of nuclear contents in eukaryotes means that cells require sites in the boundary that mediate exchange of material between nucleus and cytoplasm. These sites, termed nuclear pore complexes (NPCs), number 100-200 in yeast, a few thousand in mammalian cells and ∼50 million in the giant nuclei of amphibian oocytes. NPCs are large (125 MDa) macromolecular complexes that comprise 50-100 different proteins in vertebrates. In spite of their size and complex structure, NPCs undergo complete breakdown and reformation at cell division. Transport through NPCs can be rapid (estimated at several hundred molecules/pore/second) and accommodates both passive diffusion of relatively small molecules, and active transport of complexes up to several megadaltons in molecular mass. Each pore can facilitate both import and export. The two processes apparently involve multiple pathways for different cargoes, and their transport signals, transport receptors and adapters, and the molecules (and their regulators) that underpin the transport mechanisms. Over the past few years there has been an increasing interest in the pore complex: structural studies have been followed by elucidation of the biochemical aspects of nuclear import, and subsequent investigations into nuclear export. The current challenge is to understand the interactions between the structural elements of the pore complex and the mechanisms that drive the physical processes of translocation through it. Movies available on-line: http://www.biologists.com/JCS/movies/jcs0712.html & Video 2