Human granulocytes generated in continuous bone marrow culture are physiologically normal.

A long-term bone marrow culture system has been derived for maintenance and proliferation of human hemopoietic stem cells and granulocytes in vitro for up to 20 wk. The granulocytes generated in these cultures at 8 wk were comparable to fresh human peripheral blood granulocytes in physiologic properties, including phagocytosis, degranulation, respiratory burst, and bacterial killing: individual granulocytes generated up to 20 wk in several cultures demonstrated normal superoxide-generating capacity by NBT dye reduction slide test. Thus, human granulocytes generated in continuous marrow culture retain many biologic functions associated with bacterocidal capacity in vivo and indicate that this system should be of value in studies of disorders of granulocyte differentiation.