Culture from human bone marrow of blast progenitor cells with an extensive proliferative capacity

The investigation of human hematopoiesis is limited by the lack of an in vitro assay for the most primitive hematopoietic stem cell. In this report, we describe the culture from normal human bone marrow of unique colonies of morphologically immature cells with scanty, agranular, cytoplasm and a primitive nucleus with nucleoli. These 'blast' cells demonstrate a significant ability for the generation of secondary colonies of multiple lineages, including additional blast cell colonies. These colonies are detected at various times during the culture period of up to 28 days. Neither the time of appearance in primary culture nor any feature of the morphological appearance of the blast cells is correlated with replating ability or the differentiation pathway followed. The progenitor cell giving rise to these colonies may represent the earliest pluripotent hematopoietic stem cell yet grown in culture.