The role of CFU-GEMM in human hemopoiesis.

The assay for CFU-GEMM has provided a measurement for pluripotent hemopoietic precursors in normal and abnormal hemopoiesis. While these cells are able to express the functional repertoire that includes not only myelopoiesis but also lymphopoiesis attempts to determine their self-renewal have shown little or no self-renewal capability. It is currently not known whether this observation reflects culture conditions favouring differentiation processes and suppressing self-renewal, or whether the observation made in culture truly reflects the potential of cells in vivo. Recent advances in molecular biology have lead to the identification of the genomic sequences of at least one of the hemopoietic growth factors thus confirming their importance as regulators.