Kinetic analysis of the growth of bone marrow mononuclear phagocytes in long-term cultures.

The present work concerns a mathematical analysis of the growth of monoblasts, promonocytes, and macrophages in long-term bone marrow cultures in the presence of conditioned medium. For this purpose, use was made of the normalized data of four experiments, each done in triplicate. The computer program was based on a concept of hypothetical subcompartments within each developmental stage. The growth parameters were then determined experimentally or by trial and error after a series of computer simulations. The mathematical results are in close agreement with the numbers of monoblasts, promonocytes, and macrophages obtained by counts in 21-day-old bone marrow cultures. This approach provides a means to understand the kinetic behaviour of mononuclear phagocytes.