Intermittent feeding as a factor enhancing hemopoietic stem cell proliferation and spleen colony formation in irradiated mice.

The influence of metabolic stimulation induced by a 3 weeks' adaptation of the animals to intermittent food intake on hemopoietic stem cells was investigated in mice. The methods used included transplantation of bone marrow to lethally irradiated recipients, assay of CFUs number, seeding efficiency, and incorporation of 125iododeoxyuridine into the DNA of spleen cells. A stimulatory effect of the metabolically influenced hemopoietic environment on the proliferative activity in stem cell compartments and on the recovery of hemopoietic organs was demonstrated. These stimulatory effects were most marked when the bone marrow of metabolically influenced donors was transplanted to similarly influenced recipients.