Autocrine transforming growth factor-β controls G0 phase of early human hematopoietic progenitors in serum- or serum-free culture

Abstract

In a previous paper [8] we have shown that, with human CD 34+ cells grown in culture with serum, antisense TGF-β oligonucleotides significantly enhanced the frequency of colony formation by multilineage, early erythroid and granulomonocytic progenitors, but did not affect colony formation by late progenitors. Single cell culture and limiting dilution analysis indicated that autocrine TGF-β is produced by a subpopulation of early progenitors. We now show that this effect is observed as well in serum-free culture which supports the development of mixed colonies. Therefore, the G0 phase control of some early progenitors, by an autocrine production of TGF-β, can be observed in vitro independently of serum or accessory cells.