Abstract
Summary
Erythropoiesis was studied with tritiated thymidine-autoradiography in young female rats made polycythemic by hyper-transfusion. Total numbers of marrow nucleated erythroid cells were markedly decreased by the third day post-transfusion, whereas absolute numbers of tritiated thymidine-incorporating nucleated red cells were depressed by day one. When labeling indices and grain count distributions were compared between erythroid marrows of polycythemic and control rats no differences were found. From this it was concluded that the suppression of erythropoiesis occurring in transfusion-induced polycythemic rats results from decreased differentiation of stem cells into erythroblasts and not from decreased proliferation of preexisting erythroid cells.
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