The phenotype of freshly isolated and cultured human bone marrow allostimulatory cells: possible heterogeneity in bone marrow dendritic cell populations.

Putative dendritic cells (DC) and their precursors have been obtained from human bone marrow but their origin and relationship to other myeloid cells remains obscure. A minor bone marrow mononuclear cell (BMMC) population, which contains the most potent allostimulatory cells and lacks mature cell lineage markers (CD3, CD11b, CD14, CD15, CD16, CD19, CD57 and glycophorin A; lineage-negative) was enriched by immunoselection. These preparations, which contain cells with similar characteristics to freshly isolated human blood DC, were further subdivided by serial fluorescent-activated cell sorting (FACS). Potent allostimulatory cells were detected in the CD34, CD33 and CD4 positive and negative subpopulations. Cells with putative DC morphology were present in both the CD33 and CD4 positive and negative fractions. No significant CD13 or Thy-1 staining was seen in the lineage-negative population. In vitro culture of lineage-negative BMMC for 7 days in conditioned medium resulted in a up to fivefold expansion of cells and generated many lineage-positive progeny. This lineage-positive population was as allostimulatory as the negative progeny. Likewise, the CD14-positive and the CD14-negative cell progeny were equally allostimulatory. In contrast, the freshly isolated lineage-positive BMMC (containing CD14-positive monocytes) remained poor stimulators of the mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR), even after culture in the presence of cytokines. These data suggest that there are at least two phenotypically diverse forms of potent allostimulatory cells in the lineage-negative fraction of human BM, at least some of which express the early haemopoietic precursor antigens CD34 or CD33. Some of these precursors generate CD14-positive allostimulatory cells upon in vitro culture, suggesting an intimate link between DC ontogeny and myeloid differentiation.