技术资料

BACKGROUND: Circulation of mature fetal blood cells in the maternal blood for a certain postpartum period has been verified,but detailed study of the fetal HPCs has not been reported. The objective of this study was to evaluate the frequency and clearance of these cells in the peripheral blood of puerperal women. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: PBMNCs from 15 puerperal women who gave birth to male infants were cultured in semi-solid medium containing hematopoietic stimulating factors. Colonies formed in the medium were individually characterized,collected,and subjected to PCR amplification of the SRY gene on Y chromosome to confirm fetal origin. RESULTS: The mean numbers of fetal progenitor cell colonies isolated per mL of maternal blood were 1.63,2.48,0.56,0.12,and 0 on the day of delivery,at 4 days,1 month,6 months,and 1 year after delivery,respectively. There was no difference in the ratio of fetal versus maternal colonies between erythroid and granulocyte/macrophage lineages. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrated that a significant number of fetal HPCs circulate in the maternal blood for a duration of at least 6 months after delivery. View Publication

Patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) have blood cells deficient in glycosyl phosphatidylinositol (GPI)-linked proteins owing to a somatic mutation in the X-linked PIGA gene. To target Piga recombination to the erythroid/megakaryocytic lineage in mice,the Cre/loxP system was used,and Cre was expressed under the transcriptional regulatory sequences of GATA-1. Breeding of GATA1-cre (G) transgenic mice with mice carrying a floxed Piga (L) allele was associated with high embryonic lethality. However,double-transgenic (GL) mice that escaped early recombination looked healthy and were observed for 16 months. Flow cytometric analysis of peripheral blood cells showed that GL mice had up to 100% of red cells deficient in GPI-linked proteins. The loss of GPI-linked proteins on the cell surface occurred late in erythroid differentiation,causing a proportion of red cells to express low residual levels of GPI-linked proteins. Red cells with residual expression of GPI-linked proteins showed an intermediate sensitivity toward complement and thus resemble PNH type II cells in patients with PNH. Recombination of the floxed Piga allele was also detected in cultured megakaryocytes,mast cells,and eosinophils,but not in neutrophils,lymphocytes,or nonhematopoietic tissues. In summary,GATA1-Cre causes high-efficiency Piga gene inactivation in a GATA-1-specific pattern. For the first time,mice were generated that have almost 100% of red cells deficient in GPI-linked proteins. These animals will be valuable to further investigate the consequences of GPI-anchor deficiency on erythroid/megakaryocytic cells. View Publication

Use of oncoretroviral vectors in gene therapy for hemoglobinopathies has been impeded by low titer vectors,genetic instability,and poor expression. Fifteen self- inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vectors using 4 erythroid promoters in combination with 4 erythroid enhancers with or without the woodchuck hepatitis virus postregulatory element (WPRE) were generated using the enhanced green fluorescent protein as a reporter gene. Vectors with high erythroid-specific expression in cell lines were tested in primary human CD34(+) cells and in vivo in the murine bone marrow (BM) transplantation model. Vectors containing the ankyrin-1 promoter showed high-level expression and stable proviral transmission. Two vectors containing the ankyrin-1 promoter and 2 erythroid enhancers (HS-40 plus GATA-1 or HS-40 plus 5-aminolevulinate synthase intron 8 [I8] enhancers) and WPRE expressed at levels higher than the HS2/beta-promoter vector in bulk unilineage erythroid cultures and individual erythroid blast-forming units derived from human BM CD34(+) cells. Sca1(+)/lineage(-) Ly5.1 mouse hematopoietic cells,transduced with these 2 ankyrin-1 promoter vectors,were injected into lethally irradiated Ly5.2 recipients. Eleven weeks after transplantation,high-level expression was seen from both vectors in blood (63%-89% of red blood cells) and erythroid cells in BM (70%-86% engraftment),compared with negligible expression in myeloid and lymphoid lineages in blood,BM,spleen,and thymus (0%-4%). The I8/HS-40-containing vector encoding a hybrid human beta/gamma-globin gene led to 43% to 113% human gamma-globin expression/copy of the mouse alpha-globin gene. Thus,modular use of erythroid-specific enhancers/promoters and WPRE in SIN-lentiviral vectors led to identification of high-titer,stably transmitted vectors with high-level erythroid-specific expression for gene therapy of red cell diseases. View Publication