In the CFU assay, BMMC formed numerous colonies and at
least three types of hematopoietic progenitor cells differentiated
into a variety of mature and immature blood cells. The number of
BMMC colonies was higher than that observed in PMN and PBMC
colonies, and the CFU assay results support the assumption of a
hematopoietic function in the BMMC based on the marker
gene expression profiles of dolphin BMMC, PMN and PBMC. It
is therefore suggested that the dolphin BMMCs have more
hematopoietic cells than the other cell types, and that PBMCs
contain only a few hematopoietic cells. In this study, BMMCs were
lymphocyte-like cells isolated using Lymphoprep, and PHA-LCM
was used for the proliferation and the differentiation of bottlenose
dolphin hematopoietic cells