Abstract
Recently, it became apparent in-vitro growth of very primitive erythroid progenitor, erythroid burst-forming unit (BFU-E), depended not on erythropoietin but rather on burst promoting activity (BPA).
In this study, sera of children with idiopathic aplasic anemia and human placental conditioned medium (HPCM) were tested for their effects on growth of human BFU-E in plasma clot cultures.
The sera were obtained from 3 children with aplastic anemia who aged in 3, 10, and 11 years, respectively. The patients' peripheral blood were pancytopenia and bone marrow findings showed hypocellularity.
HPCM were obtained by the method described Burgess et al. The Plasma clot cultures were done by the method of Tepperman et al with minor modifications.
The results obtained were as follows:
1) All sera from 3 children with aplastic anemia had high levels of BPA; in addition, mixed colonies composed of erythroblasts, granulocytes and probably macrophages or megakaryocytes were found in the culture added the serum.
2) BPA were detected in HPCM.
