Granulocyte Colony-Stimulating Factor: Biology and Clinical Potential

Abstract

The study of hematopoiesis was greatly facilitated in the mid-1960s when techniques for studying hematopoietic cells in clonal culture were developed. Initially, serum or conditioned medium was added to cultures as a source of growth factors, i.e., the colony-stimulating factors (CSFs) [56, 57, 85]. One of the factors that was isolated, purified, cloned, and produced in commercial quantities was granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), a protein that acts on the neutrophil lineage to selectively stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of committed progenitor cells and activation of mature neutro-phils (Fig. 1). A property that distinguished G-CSF from other CSF and facilitated its purification, molecular cloning, and large-scale production in prokaryotic cells was its ability to induce terminal differentiation of a murine leukemic cell line (WFHI-3B). After observing that serum from endotoxin-treated mice was capable of causing the differentiation of a WFHI-3B myelomono-cytic leukemic cell line, Metcalf [55] named the activity GM-DF (granulocyte- macrophage differentiating factor). © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.