Optimal erythroid cell production during erythropoietin treatment of mice occurs by exploiting the splenic microenvironment.

In this study, quantitative effects on erythroid cell production by a prolonged recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEpo) treatment of mice are presented. Epo treatments, given subcutaneously (s.c.) twice per day in doses of 0.5 to 500 U per day, were performed under steady-state production conditions. We found striking differences between the behavior of the different erythroid cell compartments (burst-forming unit erythroid [BFU-E], colony-forming unit erythroid [CFU-E] and erythroid precursors), as well as between the microenvironments of bone marrow and spleen. Whereas the total-body BFU-E was not changed by Epo, a redistribution of BFU-E from marrow to spleen occurred, resulting in decreasing marrow and increasing splenic BFU-E numbers. Splenic BFU-E produced CFU-E as much as 8 times more efficiently than marrow BFU-E at 50 U of Epo. At low Epo doses (to 1 U/day) no difference was found. The CFU-E in the spleen produced erythroblasts at a higher efficiency at all Epo doses (1.5 to 5 times). It seems as if this efficiency was higher at low Epo doses. Because of the migration phenomenon and the excellent microenvironment in the spleen, at the highest Epo concentrations nearly 70% of all erythroid cells reside in the spleen. Even at the highest Epo doses, granuloid cell production was not affected. Similar to the BFU-E, total-body granuloid cells remained constant (despite a shift of granulocyte-macrophage progenitors [CFU-GM]) from marrow to spleen; however, these cells did not flourish in the spleen. Under these conditions, 90% of the granuloid precursors were still localized in the marrow. Erythropoietin did not change the transit time of erythroid cells at high Epo doses.