Purification to apparent homogeneity of a factor stimulating the growth of multiple lineages of hemopoietic cells.

A glycoprotein that stimulates the proliferation of multiple hemopoietic stem and progenitor cell types was purified to apparent homogeneity. The factor, termed P cell-stimulating factor (PSF), was assayed by its ability to support the growth of murine factor-dependent hemopoietic cell lines operationally termed persisting cells (P cells). PSF was purified 50,000-fold from serum-free medium conditioned by the myelomonocytic cell line WEHI-3B by sequential ammonium sulfate precipitation, phenyl boronate chromatography, gel filtration on Sephadex G-100, neuraminidase treatment, Mono Q anion exchange chromatography, reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography on a C18 silica column, and two steps of high performance gel permeation chromatography on a TSK 3000 SW column operated under first neutral and then acidic solvent conditions. Although purified PSF could not be detected on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels stained with silver, following electrophoresis of purified PSF labeled with iodine-125, autoradiography showed only a single broad band of Mr = 30,000. This labeled band corresponded to the profile of PSF activity eluted from polyacrylamide gel slices. After reduction, labeled PSF had a slightly higher Mr of 32,000, although reduction resulted in loss of 98% of PSF activity, thus suggesting that the integrity of internal disulfide bond(s) was required for activity. When purified PSF was chromatographed on a TSK 3000 SW column under denaturing conditions in 0.1% sodium dodecyl sulfate, the single peak of absorbance at 280 nm coincided with a sharp peak of biological activity. The following unique NH2-terminal amino acid sequence of the purified PSF was obtained: NH2ALA -SER-Ile-Ser-X-X-Asp-Thr-His-Arg-Leu-Thr-Arg-. The concentration of PSF required for half-maximal stimulation of P cell growth was estimated as 1.3 X 10(-13) M or 4 pg/ml. The availability of purified PSF will allow rigorous examination of the hypothesis that a single molecule acts on multiple hemopoietic cell lineages.