The Antioxidant TEMPOL Protects Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells From Culture-Mediated Loss of Functions.

In a steady state, hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) exhibit very low levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Upon stress, HSC get activated and enter into proliferation and differentiation process to ensure blood cell regeneration. Once activated, their levels of ROS increase, as messengers to mediate their proliferation and differentiation programs. However, at the end of the stress episode, ROS levels need to return to normal to avoid HSC exhaustion. It was shown that antioxidants can prevent loss of HSC self-renewal potential in several contexts such as aging or after exposure to low doses of irradiation suggesting that antioxidants can be used to maintain HSC functional properties upon culture-induced stress. Indeed, in humans, HSC are increasingly used for cell and gene therapy approaches, requiring them to be cultured for several days. As expected, we show that a short culture period leads to drastic defects in HSC functional properties. Moreover, a switch of HSC transcriptional program from stemness to differentiation was evidenced in cultured HSC. Interestingly, cultured-HSC treated with 4-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl (4-hydroxy-TEMPO or Tempol) exhibited a higher clonogenic potential in secondary colony forming unit cell (CFU-C) assay and higher reconstitution potential in xenograft model, compared to untreated cultured-HSC. By transcriptomic analyses combined with serial CFU-C assays, we show that Tempol, which mimics superoxide dismutase, protects HSC from culture-induced stress partly through VEGFα signaling. Thus, we demonstrate that adding Tempol leads to the protection of HSC functional properties during ex vivo culture.

How Hematopoietic Stem Cells Respond to Irradiation: Similarities and Differences between Low and High Doses of Ionizing Radiations.

In this review, we will specifically address the newest insights on the effect of low doses of ionizing radiations on the hematopoietic stem cells, which are prone to long-term deleterious effects. Impact of high doses of irradiation on hematopoietic cells has been widely studied over the years, in line with the risk of accidental or terrorist exposure to irradiation and with a particular attention to the sensitivity of the hematopoietic system. Recently, more studies have focused on lower doses of irradiation on different tissues, due to the increasing exposure caused by medical imaging, radiotherapy or plane travelling for instance. Hence, we will delineate similarities and discrepancies in HSC response to high and low doses of irradiation from these studies.

Combined G-CSF and Plerixafor enhance hematopoietic recovery of CD34+ cells from poor mobilizer patients in NSG mice.

Transplantable CD34+ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) are currently isolated mainly from peripheral blood after mobilization with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF). These mobilized CD34+ cells have the potential to generate all blood cell types. For autologous transplantation, the minimal number of mobilized CD34+ cells is 2 × 106 CD34+ cells/kg body weight. However, up to 30% of patients fail to mobilize enough peripheral CD34+ cells after G-CSF treatment. To overcome this limitation, a combination of G-CSF and Plerixafor, a CXCR4 chemokine receptor inhibitor, is proposed to enhance CD34+ cell mobilization in poor mobilizer patients. However, only limited data are available on quantification of the functional quality of such patients' mobilized hematopoietic stem cells. Here, for six poor mobilizer patients, a head-to-head comparison of their CD34+ cells mobilized without versus with Plerixafor was performed to assess their properties with respect to the reconstitution of human hematopoiesis in vivo in immune-deficient mice. Our results indicate that mobilized CD34+ cells recovered after the G-CSF + Plerixafor mobilization protocol have an enhanced intrinsic hematopoietic reconstitution potential compared with CD34+ cells mobilized with G-CSF alone.

Human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells display reactive oxygen species-dependent long-term hematopoietic defects after exposure to low doses of ionizing radiations.

Hematopoietic stem cells are responsible for life-long blood cell production and are highly sensitive to exogenous stresses. The effects of low doses of ionizing radiations on radiosensitive tissues such as the hematopoietic tissue are still unknown despite their increasing use in medical imaging. Here, we study the consequences of low doses of ionizing radiations on differentiation and self-renewal capacities of human primary hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC). We found that a single 20 mGy dose impairs the hematopoietic reconstitution potential of human HSPC but not their differentiation properties. In contrast to high irradiation doses, low doses of irradiation do not induce DNA double strand breaks in HSPC but, similar to high doses, induce a rapid and transient increase of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that promotes activation of the p38MAPK pathway. HSPC treatment with ROS scavengers or p38MAPK inhibitor prior exposure to 20 mGy irradiation abolishes the 20 mGy-induced defects indicating that ROS and p38MAPK pathways are transducers of low doses of radiation effects. Taken together, these results show that a 20 mGy dose of ionizing radiation reduces the reconstitution potential of HSPC suggesting an effect on the self-renewal potential of human hematopoietic stem cells and pinpointing ROS or the p38MAPK as therapeutic targets. Inhibition of ROS or the p38MAPK pathway protects human primary HSPC from low-dose irradiation toxicity.

Massively parallel and multiparameter titration of biochemical assays with droplet microfluidics.

Biochemical systems in which multiple components take part in a given reaction are of increasing interest. Because the interactions between these different components are complex and difficult to predict from basic reaction kinetics, it is important to test for the effect of variations in the concentration for each reagent in a combinatorial manner. For example, in PCR, an increase in the concentration of primers initially increases template amplification, but large amounts of primers result in primer-dimer by-products that inhibit the amplification of the template. Manual titration of biochemical mixtures rapidly becomes costly and laborious, forcing scientists to settle for suboptimal concentrations. Here we present a droplet-based microfluidics platform for mapping of the concentration space of up to three reaction components followed by detection with a fluorescent readout. The concentration of each reaction component is read through its internal standard (barcode), which is fluorescent but chemically orthogonal. We describe in detail the workflow, which comprises the following: (i) production of the microfluidics chips, (ii) preparation of the biochemical mixes, (iii) their mixing and compartmentalization into water-in-oil emulsion droplets via microfluidics, (iv) incubation and imaging of the fluorescent barcode and reporter signals by fluorescence microscopy and (v) image processing and data analysis. We also provide recommendations for choosing the appropriate fluorescent markers, programming the pressure profiles and analyzing the generated data. Overall, this platform allows a researcher with a few weeks of training to acquire ∼10,000 data points (in a 1D, 2D or 3D concentration space) over the course of a day from as little as 100-1,000 µl of reaction mix.