This study was carried out to determine whether bone might be a source of hemopoietic growth factors. Both neonatal murine calvaria and primary cultures of cells isolated from calvaria released, upon stimulation with lipopolysaccharide, an activity that stimulated the growth of the interleukin (IL) 3-dependent cell lines, 32D cl, 123, and NSF 60. Upon gel filtration, this activity eluted with a molecular weight of 30,000 kDa. Further characterization, however, revealed that the major activity in conditioned medium was not IL 3. Activity was absorbed by DEAE-Sephacel at low salt concentration, whereas IL 3 does not adhere. Furthermore, an IL 3-specific antiserum did not neutralize the activity from cells and only partly neutralized the activity generated by whole calvaria. After gel filtration, the 30-kDa activity stimulated the growth of very large colonies in semisolid medium consisting mainly of granulocytes with the remainder being macrophages. No colony types belonging to other hemopoietic lineages were found, indicating, again, that the activity was not identical to IL 3. Subsequently, conditioned medium was fractionated by hydrophobic chromatography on Phenyl-Sepharose CL-4B, yielding two peaks of activity. Neutralization of activity with antisera to granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and IL 3 and use of colony assays showed that medium conditioned by whole calvaria contained GM-CSF and granulocyte CSF (G-CSF) in similar amounts together with a little IL 3, and medium conditioned with calvaria cells contained GM-CSF and little G-CSF. We conclude that bone releases hemopoietic growth factors that could contribute both to hemopoiesis and to the recruitment of osteoclasts from progenitors resident in the adjacent marrow.