Effect of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Growth Factors on Umbilical Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cells Proliferation in ex vivo

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is one of the most important sources of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). However, the limited amount of HSCs in UCB has been an obstacle for transplantation of adult hematopoietic stem cell. One of the applied methods to overcome this problem is the proliferation of HSCs in culture medium, so beside the additive growth factors, some other factors such as Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as feeder layer can be used for the proliferation of Hematopoietic stem cells in ex vivo.

CD34+ cells were cultured in two different media including; 1) culturing CD34+ cells in serum- free medium (Stemspan) and in the presence of growth factors, 2) culturing CD34+ cells on feeder layer of Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in media including the growth factors. These culture media were evaluated in terms of the number of total nucleated cells (TNCs), CD34 surface marker and CFU assay eight days after the culture.

The mean of CD34+ cells and TNCs in the first medium was 10.8 ± 1.9 and 32.2 ± 3.0 and in the second medium was 40.9 ± 7.3 and 63.5 ± 8.1, respectively. The difference between the number of cells in two culture media in the last day of culture and before the proliferation (0 day) was statistically significant (P<0.05).

The simultaneous application of growth factors and MSCs in culture media could largely contribute to the proliferation of HSCs in ex vivo.