Identification of CD34+ subsets after glycoprotease selection: engraftment of CD34+Thy-1+Lin- stem cells in fetal sheep.

Epitopes on the CD34 molecule detected by some CD34 antibodies can be cleaved by a unique glycoprotease from Pasteurella haemolytica, which cleaves only glycoproteins rich in O-linked glycans. A method to isolate CD34+ cells from adult bone marrow was developed subsequently, in which CD34+ cells were isolated in high purity and yield following immunomagnetic bead selection and detachment with the glycoprotease. Using a variety of other cell-surface markers shown here to be insensitive to glycoprotease, committed progenitors of T lymphoid, B lymphoid, monomyeloid, megakaryoblastic, or erythroid lineages could be identified. Significantly, candidate hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) that are contained within a CD34+Lin- (CD2-, CD14-, CD15-, CD16-, CD19-) (or CD34+CD38-) subset expressing the Thy-1 antigen (CDw90), c-kit receptor (CD117), and CDw109 but lacking expression of CD71 and HLA-DR antigens also were detected. Functionally distinct subsets of glycoprotease-selected CD34+ cells were identified and subfractionated using flow cytometry and fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS). These subsets included candidate HSCs expressing the CD34+Thy-1+Lin- phenotype, which were sorted from a CD34+ fraction of a mobilized peripheral blood (MPB) sample. In a fetal sheep model, when CD34+Thy-1+Lin- cells were injected intraperitoneally, they were capable of homing to the marrow, where they generated long-term multilineage hematopoiesis and maintained human CD34+ cells, indicating that candidate HSC subsets of CD34+ cells selected with this highly specific enzyme were capable of engraftment in vivo. The ability to identify and purify virtually any phenotypically defined subset of glycoprotease-selected CD34+ stem/progenitor cells should facilitate the study of hematopoiesis in vitro and in animal models in vivo as well as the development of novel genetic techniques for the correction of specific blood cell disorders in humans.

Leukemic burden in subpopulations of CD34+ cells isolated from the mobilized peripheral blood of alpha-interferon-resistant or -intolerant patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.

We attempted to determine the frequency of normal hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and contaminating leukemic cells in mobilized peripheral blood (MPB) collected from chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) patients, intolerant of alpha-interferon or with interferon-resistant disease. A total of 14 MPB samples, six from patients in chronic phase (CP) and eight from patients in accelerated phase or blast crisis (AP/BC) were studied. Cytogenetic analysis of MPB collected from AP/BC patients showed that 100% of the cells were Ph+, whereas cells from four of five CP MPB were Ph-. By contrast, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis of CP MPB showed a mean frequency of 14.7% Ph+ cells, while AP/BC MPB contained 39.2% Ph+ cells. In an attempt to purify normal HSC, subpopulations of the MPB CD34+ cells were isolated based on expression of the Thy-1 antigen (CDw90). The mean Ph+ cell frequency as determined by FISH within the CD34+Thy-1+Lin- and CD34+Thy-1-Lin- populations from CP patients was 19.2% and 33.9%, respectively. In the AP/BC patients, levels of residual leukemic cells were significantly greater with mean Ph+ cell frequencies of 59.2% and 72.7% for the CD34+Thy-1+Lin- and CD34+Thy-1-Lin- fractions, respectively. The frequency of cobblestone area forming cells (CAFC) was used as a means of quantitating the numbers of functional HSC within these cell subpopulations. The mean CAFC frequency was 1 of 19 for the CD34+Thy-1+Lin- cells as compared with 1 of 133 for the Thy-1-fraction indicating a higher frequency of primitive progenitor cells in the Thy-1+ subpopulation. CD34+ cell subsets from two patients were also injected into SCID-hu bone assays to determine the in vivo behavior of these cell populations. After 8 weeks, multilineage donor engraftment was observed in these grafts. FISH analysis of the donor cells within the grafts showed that 55.3% and 60.0% of the cells were Ph+. We conclude that unfractionated MPB from this patient population is not leukemia-free and that the CD34+Thy-1+Lin- cell subpopulation, although predominantly enriched for normal HSC, still contains substantial numbers of residual leukemic cells.

Detection of a primitive megakaryocyte progenitor cell in human fetal bone marrow.

Ontogeny-related changes in megakaryocyte (MK) progenitor cells were a analyzed to further define the cellular hierarchy occurring during human MK development. CD34+ cells were selected from human low-density adult bone marrow (ABM) or unfractionated fetal bone marrow (FBM) and assayed for MK colony formation in a serum-depleted fibrin clot assay system. At days 3, 7, 12, 16, 21, and 28 of incubation, MK colonies were analyzed for colony number, size and number of foci of development. Unifocal CFU-MK-derived colonies cloned from FBM formed after fewer days of in vitro culture and were 2.6-fold larger than those colonies cloned from ABM, However, the frequency of CFU-MK derived colonies cloned from ABM was significantly greater. the MK colonies cloned from FBM morphologically consisted of both pure MK colonies and mixed MK-containing colonies, in which a core of CD41- cells were surrounded by CD41+MKs. Large colonies resembling the primitive burst-forming unit-MK (BFU-MK) also were assayable from both FBM and ABM. These BFU-MK-derived colonies appeared after fewer days of incubation when FBM was assayed compared to ABM, but at a significantly lower frequency. In addition, large unifocal MK colonies consisting of >300 cells (300-1000) appeared from cells cloned from FBM but not ABM. This type of colony, which appears to represent a unique type of MK progenitor cell, was termed a high proliferative potential cell-MK (HPPC-MK). such colonies represent a relatively rare MK progenitor. We conclude that there are a significant ontologic changes in human MK progenitor cell development. The kinetics of MK colony formation from ABM differs significantly from that of FBM. Furthermore, the proliferative capacity of fetal MK progenitor cells appear to be far greater than that of ABM. In addition, a more primitive lineage-restricted MK progenitor cell with extensive proliferative capacity, the HPPC-MK, was assayable exclusively from FBM.

Fetal bone marrow CD34+CD41+ cells are enriched for multipotent hematopoietic progenitors, but not for pluripotent stem cells.

We have investigated the expression of CD41a (gpIIbIIIa) on a subpopulation of human fetal bone marrow (FBM) CD34+ progenitor cells. Human FBM CD34+Lin- cells were subfractionated into CD41a+ and CD41a- subpopulations by flow cytometry. All the megakaryocyte colony-forming cells (CFU-MK) and almost all the burst-forming units-megakaryocyte (BFU-MK) were found within the CD41a+ subpopulation. In addition, a 14-fold greater number of granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming units (CFU-GM) and a five-fold greater number of mixed lineage progenitor cells (CFU-mix) were observed within the CD34+Lin-CD41a+ subpopulation compared to the CD34+Lin-CD41a- subpopulation. The high proliferative potential of CD34+Lin-CD41a+ cells was demonstrated by their capacity to expand in in vitro culture containing human plasma and recombinant Mpl ligand (thrombopoietin [Tpo]) with production of over 80% CD41b+ (gpIIb+) MKs. However, in long-term bone marrow cultures, the CD34+Lin-CD41a- population contained a significantly higher frequency of cobblestone area-forming cells (CAFC) than the CD34+Lin-CD41a+ population, indicating the presence of a primitive hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) population within the CD34+Lin-CD41a- subset. These data suggest that fetal CD34+Lin-CD41a+ cells are enriched for MK progenitor cells (CFU-MK and BFU-MK), myeloid progenitors, and CFU-mix but do not contain the more primitive CAFC.