Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSC)

Hematologic and non-hematologic disorders can be treated with autologous or allogenic bone marrow (BM) or peripheral blood (PB) hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation. However, the application is often limited due to timely identification of a suitable matched allogeneic donor or lack of own available cells.

Transplantation of Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to treat various hematologic and immune disorders is very promising but often limited due to availability of matched donors. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) contains less mature HSCs with greater telomere length and thus offer a better alternative. However, the clinical use in adults is often limited due to low progenitor counts resulting in slow engraftment. Ex vivo expansion of UCB-HSCs to clinically relevant doses may overcome this hurdle and benefit patients.

We have conducted a proof of concept for ex vivo expansion of human umbilical cord blood (UCB) derived hematopoietic stem progenitor cells. These cells were grown in a special media/recipe that included major important growth factors and our test compound was added at different concentrations. Fold expansion of UCB-HSCs cultured in the presence of the test compound was significantly higher, 127.5±0.70 and 118±7.07 in comparison to untreated cells 93±7.07 (Figure). Subsequently we conducted cell surface marker assessment of these ex vivo expanded cells and confirmed that expanded progenitors were purely CD34+CD133+ HSCs and treatment conditions did not affect their expression phenotype.