Gliotoxin treatment selectively spares M‐CSF‐ plus IL‐3‐responsive multipotent haemopoietic progenitor cells in bone marrow

Abstract

Abstract: Gliotoxin, an epipolythiodioxopiperazine, is a fungal metabolite that causes genomic DNA degradation preferentially in certain blood cell types including T lymphocytes and macrophages. Gliotoxin has previously been used to treat murine allogeneic bone marrow prior to transplantation into irradiated recipients, and in this situation the drug prevents development of graft‐versus‐host disease, and permits the establishment of allogeneic bone marrow chimeras. We have examined the nature of the cells that survive gliotoxin treatment and report here that gliotoxin selectively spares a unique class of haemopoietic stem cell that forms large (HPP) colonies in the presence of mixtures of M‐CSF and IL‐3. We confirm that the cells which survive gliotoxin treatment are capable of reconstituting the haemopoietic system in allogeneic lethally irradiated mice. Show more