Tumor necrosis factor is partly responsible for the differentiation of mouse myeloid leukemia cells.

: When mouse myeloid leukemia M1 cells were incubated with 0.1% TNS(serum containing tumor necrosis factor, TNF), they were induced to differentiate into macrophage-like cells within 14 h. The stability of the differentiation activity to heat treatment was very similar to that of the cytotoxicity of TNF for L929 cells. The differentiation activity could not be separated from the TNF activity by sequential chromatography procedures using DEAE-Sephadex and Sephacryl S-200 or by isoelectric focusing. These results suggest that the differentiation activity of TNS is due to TNF. Indeed, recombinant human TNF induced differentiation of M1 cells.