Gene expression analysis of human fetal liver hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) in culture

One of the long-standing goals in the field has been to establish a culture system that would allow maintenance of HSC properties ex vivo. In the absence of such system, the ability to model human hematopoiesis in vitro has been limited, and there has been little progress in the expansion of human HSCs for clinical application. To that end, we defined a mesenchyml stem cell co-culture system for expansion of clonally multipotent human HSPCs that are protected from apoptosis and immediate differentiation, and retain the HSPC phenotype. By performing a genome-wide gene expression analysis of purified HSPCs isolated at different stages of co-culture, we asked at the molecular level, to what degree hematopetic stem cell properties can be preserved during culture. This temporal gene expression data from in vivo derived- and ex vivo expanded human HSPCs will serve as a resource to identify novel regulatory pathways that control HSC properties, and to develop clinically applicable protocols for HSC expansion.

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Magnusson M, Sierra MI, Sasidharan R, Prashad SL, Romero M, Saarikoski P, Van Handel B, Huang A, Li X, Mikkola HK