We compared the release of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) in the supernatant of long-term bone marrow cultures (LTBMC) derived from 10 control patients and from 14 patients before and 3 months after autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The three cytokines were spontaneously present in the supernatant of cultures established from patients before and after autologous BMT, while GM-CSF remained undetectable in the supernatants of control patients. The maximal levels of cytokines were produced after the first week and were not statistically different between control, patients before and after grafts although the granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming unit (CFU-GM) production in long-term culture (LTC) was lower in patients after graft compared with control patients (median values at LTC initiation: 32 and 158, respectively, P < 0.001 and median values of the total production: 510 and 12406, respectively, P < 0.002). However, GM-CSF was more frequently detected in patients after graft than in control patients. This study demonstrated that the production of GM-CSF, G-CSF and TNF alpha is not impaired in patients after graft (medians 0, 870.5, 173.5 pg/ml and ranges 0-31.2, 0-10 000 and 0-1426, respectively) compared with control patients (medians 0, 69, 66 pg/ml and ranges 0, 0-13 280 and 0-1318, respectively), although patients after graft were shown to have lower marrow CFU-GM counts. These results suggest that the ability of the accessory cells to produce these cytokines was not reduced after autologous BMT.