Possibilities of Differentiation of Cells Grown in Hematopoietic Tissue Cultures on Retransplantation In Vivo

Abstract

Growth in culture of cell material suitable for transplantation may become a reasonable task in hematopoietic tissue culture. As was stated in the Introduction, it is a task that by no means applies to all tissues, hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues being exceptions. Two tissue components can be distinguished in every hematopoietic and lymphoid organ: hematopoietic (or lymphoid) and stromal. With regard to the first component, numerous experiments have now shown conclusively that its origin is in a hematopoietic stem cell that is common to every hematopoietic tissue (see Chapter V). Thus, the question of the suitability of cultured cells for successful transplantation in vivo can be reduced quite simply to whether hematopoietic stem cells can be maintained in vitro, or, to state the question as a practical problem, to the development of methods of culture that enable hematopoietic stem cells to proliferate.