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CM Niemeyer, CA Sieff, BR Smith, KA Ault and DG Nathan
Division of Hematology and Pediatric Oncology, Children's Hospital, Boston,
MA.
The role of natural killer (NK) lymphocytes in the regulation of human
hematopoiesis is controversial. NK-mediated inhibition of colony formation
of hematopoietic progenitor cells has been irregularly reported for various
cell lineages. In an effort to clarify such disparate findings, we studied
the interaction of clearly defined NK and partially purified progenitor
cell populations. Cell sorter purified CD16 positive blood NK cells and
enriched autologous marrow progenitors were co-incubated at various
lymphocyte to marrow cell ratios and then cultured in methylcellulose.
There was no inhibition of myeloid, erythroid, or mixed colony formation.
Similarly, activation of CD16 positive lymphocytes by interleukin-2 (IL-2)
before co-incubation and co-culture did not result in inhibition of colony
formation. Furthermore, in a newly designed assay system, we demonstrated
that NK cells, which did not modulate colony-formation, remained capable of
recognizing and killing rare K562 target cells seeded within the marrow
cell population. Our results indicate that unstimulated and IL-2 activated
isolated blood NK cells coexist with functioning autologous marrow
progenitors in vitro.
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