Hematologic changes during spleen colony development in nonirradiated mice.

The mechanism of spleen colony formation in nonirradiated mice was investigated. When the spleen cells of C57BL mice immunized against CBA-T6T6 mice were injected into the nonirradiated BT6F1 (C57BL X CBA-T6T6) hybrid mice, the number of hematopoietic stem cells (CFU-S of C57BL mouse origin that settled in the spleen of the BT6F1 mice continued to decrease in the first 9 days and then started to increase, with a doubling time of about 36 hr. Colonies were detected on the surface of the spleen 16-22 days after the cell injection. The slower appearance of spleen colonies in nonirradiated mice (compared with 6-10 days in the irridiated animals) appears to be due to retarded start of differentiation and to the prolonged doubling time of CFU-S in non-irradiated mice.