Hematopoietic Growth Factors

Abstract

THE hematopoietic growth factors are glycoprotein hormones that regulate the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic progenitor cells and the function of mature blood cells.^{1 2 3} The recognition that circulating factors regulate red-cell production was derived from the work of Carnot and Deflandre, who in 1906 induced erythrocytosis in normal rabbits by infusing them with plasma from anemic animals.⁴ Sixty years later, Pluznik and Sachs⁵ and Bradley and Metcalf⁶ developed the necessary semisolid culture systems to grow bone marrow progenitor cells in vitro. This led to the identification of hematopoietic growth factors, originally termed "colony-stimulating factors" because they stimulated the formation of . . .