When bone marrow cells are put into culture under specific conditions, a stromal layer of adherent cells develops over a few weeks.
The stromal layer is composed of many cell types, including fibroblasts, mesenchymal stem cells, adipocytes, endothelial cells and macrophages. These stromal cells function as a feeder layer for hematopoietic progenitors, allowing proliferation and differentiation of progenitors to continue for weeks in these cultures with no addition of exogenous cytokines.
This long-term culture system allows researchers to study an in vitro model of the bone marrow microenvironment, including cell-cell interactions, adhesion molecules and cytokine secretion.These and many other factors allow for the tight regulation of blood cell production, progenitor cell commitment and differentiation, and stem cell renewal.