Maintenance of hemopoietic stem cells and production of differentiated progeny in allogeneic and semiallogeneic bone marrow chimeras in vitro

A culture system is described in which bone marrow-derived adherent cells can support prolonged proliferation and differentiation of genetically incompatible stem cells and precursor cells. The results suggest that the reactive cells responsible in vivo for host transplantation resistance and for graft-versus-host disease are selectively lost or inhibited in such cultures, which may provide a vehicle for studying some of the cellular mechanisms involved in transplantation resistance.