Bovine granulocyte/macrophage and erythroid colony culture: characteristics of the colonies and the assay systems.

Bovine bone marrow granulocyte/macrophage colonies were cultured in vitro in methyl cellulose and in plasma clots using bovine endotoxin-stimulated serum as a source of colony stimulating activity. The endotoxin-stimulated serum was four times as potent as the control serum in the methyl cellulose cultures. No significant increase in the number of colony forming units was observed when bovine marrow cells were maintained in suspension cultures for various periods prior to plating in methyl cellulose. The percentage of glass/plastic adherent cells in bovine marrow cells was observed to be 43% +/- 12 (SD). Benzidine positive erythroid colonies appeared in plasma clot cultures on day 4 and disappeared by day 9. No second population of erythroid colonies appeared either as a function of time or as a function of erythropoietin concentration. The optimum erythropoietin concentration for bovine erythroid cultures was found to be 1.0 unit/mL. A significant difference was observed between animals in their marrow capacity to produce erythroid colonies in culture but no significant difference was observed within individual animals over a period of three months.