Evaluation the Effect of Thalidomide and Sodium Butyrate on Cord Blood Stem Cell Differentiation Induction to Erythroid Lineage

Utilization of fetal hemoglobin inducing drugs is of crucial importance in novel therapeutic approach of β-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. These drugs induce fetal hemoglobin production by several mechanisms such as increasing the proliferation and differentiation of erythroid progenitors. Thalidomide and sodium butyrate are two fetal hemoglobin inducers used as single and combination treatments.This research performed on erythroid progenitors derived from CD133+ cord blood stem cells. Flow cytometry was used for evaluation of the homogeneity of isolated CD133+ cells. Then, the colony formation potential of defined treated groups was evaluated using colony formation assay. Flow cytometry analysis showed the homogeneity of isolated CD133+ cord blood stem cells more than 95%. Also, the results of colony formation assay showed the potential of thalidomide in increasing the hematopoietic and erythroid colony count (1.3- and 1.5- fold increase, respectively) as compared to the control (p<0.05). The results of this study showed that thalidomide has a high potential in colony formation without cytotoxic effects on erythroid progenitors as compared to sodium butyrate and combination treatment (p<0.05).