Strain dependence of the antiproliferative action of interferon on murine erythroid precursors.

Electrophoretically pure mouse interferon inhibits erythropoietin-dependent proliferation of committed erythroid precursors (CFU-E) obtained either from adult mouse bone marrow or from 14-day fetal mouse livers. The degree of inhibition is significantly influenced by the genotype of the cell donor; about ten times as much interferon is required to inhibit proliferation of CFU-E from C57BL/6 than is needed for comparable inhibition of CFU-E from BALB/c or Swiss mice. These strain-dependent results point to the existence of genes that influence the degree of the inhibitory effect of interferon on cell multiplication.