Effects of storage on CFU of mouse bone marrow cells.

Mouse bone marrow cells were stored for 0.5, 16 and 24 hours under one of the following four conditions; saline G at room temper ature, saline G at ice temperature, CMRL 1066 at room temperature and CMRL 1066 at ice temperature. Their viability was then examined by counting CFU in the spleen of irradiated recipient mice. 1) The CFU decreased rapidly with storage time under all four conditions. Among four storage conditions, the storage in saline G at ice temperature seemed to give slightly more favorable results than others. 2) Types of micro-colonies were not significantly different under the present storage conditions. 3) Since the size of endogenous colonies were relatively small compared to exogenous colonies, the observed colonies are likely to be resulted from injected bone marrow elements and some endogenous cells. 4) It is concluded that the storage conditions in the present paper are not suitable for the storage of bone marrow cells. This emphasizes the need of exploration of a better storage method. * Research supported by U . S. Atomic Energy Commission. * * Fellow in Radiological Research of the James Picker Foundation recommended by the committee on Radiology NAS-NRC.