Leptin, the product of obese gene, was originally identified as a factor regulating body-weight homeostasis and energy balance. The present study has shown that leptin acts on murine hematopoiesis in vitro. In the culture of bone marrow cells (BMC) of normal mice, leptin induced only granulocyte-macrophage (GM) colony formation in a dose-dependent manner, and no other types of colonies were detected even in the presence of erythropoietin (Epo). Leptin also induced GM colony formation from BMC of db/db mutant mice whose leptin receptors were incomplete, but the responsiveness was significantly reduced. The effect of leptin on GM colony formation from BMC of normal mice was also observed in serum-free culture, and comparable with that of GM-colony–stimulating factor (CSF ). Although leptin alone supported few colonies from BMC of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)–treated mice in serum-free culture, remarkable synergism between leptin and stem cell factor (SCF ) was obtained in the colony formation. The addition of leptin to SCF enhanced the SCF-dependent GM colony formation and induced the generation of a number of multilineage colonies in the presence of Epo. When lineage (Lin)⁻Sca-1⁺ cells sorted from BMC of 5-FU–treated mice were incubated in serum-free culture, leptin synergized with SCF in the formation of blast cell colonies, which efficiently produced secondary colonies including a large proportion of multilineage colonies in the replating experiment. In serum-free cultures of clone-sorted Lin⁻c-Kit⁺Sca-1⁺ and Lin⁻c-Kit⁺Sca-1⁻ cells, although synergism of leptin and SCF was observed in the colony formation from both cells, leptin alone induced the colony formation from Lin⁻c-Kit⁺Sca-1⁻, but not Lin⁻c-Kit⁺Sca-1⁺ cells. These results have shown that leptin stimulates the proliferation of murine myelocytic progenitor cells and synergizes with SCF in the proliferation of primitive hematopoietic progenitors in vitro.