Growth of B - Lymphocyte Colonies in Vitro

Semisolid culture systems have been developed which permit the proliferation of mousehemopoietic progenitor cells to form colonies of neutrophils and macrophages (1, 2), erythropoietic cells (3), eosinophils (4), and megakaryocytes (5) . These cloning systems have made it possible to analyse in detail many aspects of the nature and control of these hemopoietic populations . With a cloning system for mouse plasmacytoma cells (6, 7) it was noted that the addition of erythrocytes or 2-mercaptoethanol usually increased the number and growth rate of plasmacytoma colonies . Because 2-mercaptoethanol increases the proliferation of antibody-forming cells andneoplastic lymphocytes in liquid cultures (8, 9), attempts were made to obtain colony formation in semisolid agar by mouse lymphoid cells using media containing 2-mercaptoethanol. This report describes a technique for growing B-lymphoid colonies in agar medium using cells from normal mouse lymphoid tissues and the nature and growth characteristics of these colonies . A preliminary report on this work was published elsewhere (10) .