부산대학교 도서관

In order to know the cause of anemia and leucopenia in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, in vitro cultures of hematopoietic stem cells were evaluated.Hundred thousand and 2×105 bone marrow cells were used for CFU-E and for CFU-C assay. The numbers of colonies in both culture systems were significantly decreased in rheumatoid arthritis comparing with normal control.Serum or peripheral T lymphocytes of patients with rheumatoid arthritis were added to CFU-E or CFU-C culture system of normal bone marrow cells. The addition of patients's serum to CFU-E culture system caused remarkable deppression in number of colonies. In several cases, suppression of colony formation was also observed in other combination. In T lymphocytes depleted bone marrow cells of rheumatoid arthritis, the number of colonies increased in both CFU-E and CFU-C culture system in some cases.From these findings, it is suggested that the proliferation and differentiation of erythroid and granulo-macrophage precursor cells might be disturbed by patient's serum or peripheral and bone marrow T lymphocytes. These mechanism may be one of the causes of anemia and leucopenia in rheumatoid arthritis.