The response of granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells (in vitro colonyforming cells) and of colony-stimulating (CS) factor in serum were studied in mice infected intraperitoneally with 103 viable Salmonella typhimurium. Increases in the number of colony-forming cells in marrow and spleen and increases in the serum level of CS factor occurred during the infection. There was no evidence to suggest that progressive infection was associated with failure of macrophage production. Medium rich in CS factor increased the bactericidal activity of macrophages in vitro and it was suggested that CS factor could be involved in macrophage activation.

(Osborne, 1992) and different studies of prognosis have yielded widely differing results (Hawkins, 1993). We have selected four putative biochemical indices of prognosis and evaluated them in a prospective study. The putative markers chosen were the oestrogen receptor (ER), the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), cathepsin D (cath D) and cyclic AMP-binding protein(s) (c-AMP-b).The oestrogen receptor, a nuclear protein (Mr 66 kDa) has been shown to relate to both endocrine sensitivity (Jensen, 1975) and prognosis in multiple studies, including our own previous work (Humeniuk et al., 1982;Hawkins et al., 1987aHawkins et al., , 1991, although some consider that it is only of prognostic significance in the early years after treatment (e.g. Saez et al., 1983). The receptor for epidermal growth factor is a membrane protein (Mr 180 kDa), which has been reported to be a sign of bad prognosis, again in multiple studies (Sainsbury et al., 1987;Gasparini et al., 1992). The proteolytic enzyme, cathepsin D (Mr 52 kDa), has been suggested to be involved in metastasis formation and reported in several studies also to be a sign of bad prognosis when present in high levels (for a review see Rochefort, 1990). Lastly, work in our own laboratories and elsewhere has demonstrated that high levels of cyclic AMP-binding protein(s), the regulatory subunits of the enzyme protein kinase A, represent another sign of poor prognosis, in both retrospective (Miller et al., 1990) and prospective (Miller et al., 1993)

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The responses of in vitro colony-forming cells (granulocyte-macrophage progenitor cells) were studied in the bone marrow, spleen, and blood of mice after intraperitoneal injection of 103 plaque-forming units of ectromelia virus. This study showed that a colony-forming cell response occurred during infection and was accompanied by an increase in the serum level of colony-stimulating factor and, at a later stage, colony-inhibiting factor. Changes in the proportions of colonyforming cells were not due to relative changes in other cell populations. The relationships between colony-forming cell responses and levels of infection were complex, higher levels of infection being associated with good colony-forming cell responses in bone marrow and apparently poor colony-forming cell responses in blood and spleen.