技术资料

A defect in cell trafficking and chemotaxis plays an important role in the immune deficiency observed in Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS). In this report,we show that marrow cells from WAS protein (WASP)-deficient mice also have a defect in chemotaxis. Serial transplantation and competitive reconstitution experiments demonstrated that marrow cells,including hematopoietic progenitors and stem cells (HSCs),have decreased homing capacities that were associated with a defect in adhesion to collagen. During development,HSCs migrate from the liver to the marrow and the spleen,prompting us to ask if a defect in HSC homing during development may explain the skewed X-chromosome inactivation in WAS carriers. Preliminary evidence has shown that,in contrast to marrow progenitor cells,fetal liver progenitor cells from heterozygous females had a random X-chromosome inactivation. When fetal liver cells from WASP-carrier females were injected into irradiated recipients,a nonrandom inactivation of the X-chromosome was found at the level of hematopoietic progenitors and HSCs responsible for the short- and long-term hematopoietic reconstitution. Therefore,the mechanism of the skewed X-chromosomal inactivation observed in WAS carriers may be related to a migration defect of WASP-deficient HSCs. View Publication

Hematopoiesis depends on the association of hematopoietic stem cells with stromal cells that constitute the hematopoietic microenvironment. The in vitro development of the endothelial cell from umbilical cord blood (UCB) is not well established and has met very limited success. In this study,UCB CD34(+) cells were cultured for 5 weeks in a stroma-free liquid culture system using thrombopoietin,flt3 ligand,and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor. By week 4-5,we found that firmly adherent fibroblast-like cells were established. These cells showed characteristics of endothelial cells expressing von Willebrand factor,human vascular cell adhesion molecule-1,human intracellular adhesion molecule-1,human CD31,E-selectin,and human macrophage. Furthermore,when comparing an ex vivo system without an established endothelial monolayer to an ex vivo system with an established endothelial monolayer,better expansion of total nucleated cells,CD34(+) cells,and colony-forming units (CFUs)-granulocyte-macrophage and CFUs-granulocyte-erythroid-megakaryocyte-macrophage were found during culture. This phenomenon was in part due to the fact that a significant reduction of apoptotic fractions was found in the CD34(+) cells,which were cultured on the adherent monolayer for up to 5 weeks. To gather quantitative data on the number of endothelial cells derived from a given number of CD34 cells,we performed limiting dilution assay by using Poisson distribution: the number of tested cells (linear scale) producing a 37% negative culture (logarithmic scale) is the number of cells containing one endothelial cell. By this method,one endothelial cell may be found from 314 CD34(+) cells after 5 weeks of culture. These results suggest that the UCB CD34(+) cell fraction contains endothelial cell precursors,establishing the hematopoietic microenvironment and providing the beneficial effects through downregulating apoptosis on UCB expansion protocols. These observations may provide insight for future cellular therapy or graft engineering. View Publication

It is largely unknown how hematopoietic progenitors are positioned within specialized niches of the bone marrow microenvironment during development. Chemokines such as CXCL12,previously called stromal cell-derived factor 1,are known to activate cell integrins of circulating leukocytes resulting in transient adhesion before extravasation into tissues. However,this short-term effect does not explain the mechanism by which progenitor cells are retained for prolonged periods in the bone marrow. Here we show that in human bone marrow CXCL12 triggers a sustained adhesion response specifically in progenitor (pro- and pre-) B cells. This sustained adhesion diminishes during B cell maturation in the bone marrow and,strikingly,is absent in circulating mature B cells,which exhibit only transient CXCL12-induced adhesion. The duration of adhesion is tightly correlated with CXCL12-induced activation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK),a known molecule involved in integrin-mediated signaling. Sustained adhesion of progenitor B cells is associated with prolonged FAK activation,whereas transient adhesion in circulating B cells is associated with short-lived FAK activation. Moreover,sustained and transient adhesion responses are differentially affected by pharmacological inhibitors of protein kinase C and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase. These results provide a developmental cell stage-specific mechanism by which chemokines orchestrate hematopoiesis through sustained rather than transient activation of adhesion and cell survival pathways. 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

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

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

Bispecific antibodies directed against tumor-associated target antigens and to surface receptors mediating T-cell activation,such as the TCR/CD3 complex and the costimulatory receptor CD28,are capable of mediating T-cell activation resulting in tumor cell killing. In this study,we used the B-cell-associated antigens CD19 and CD20 as target structures on human leukemic cells. We found that a combination of bispecific antibody fragments (bsFab2) with target x CD3 and target x CD28 specificity induces vigorous autologous T-cell activation and killing of malignant cells in peripheral blood and bone marrow cultures from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and follicular lymphoma. The bsFab2 targeting CD20 were considerably more effective than those binding to CD19. The colony-forming capacity of treated bone marrow was impaired due to large amounts of tumor necrosis factor alpha produced during bsFab2-induced T-cell activation. Neutralizing tumor necrosis factor alpha antibodies were found to reverse this negative effect without affecting T-cell activation and tumor cell killing. CD20 x CD28 bsFab2,when used alone rather than in combination,markedly improved the recognition of leukemic cells by allogeneic T cells. Therefore,these reagents may be capable of enhancing the immunogenicity of leukemic cells in general and,in particular,of increasing the antileukemic activity of allogeneic donor buffy coat cells in relapsed bone marrow transplanted patients. View Publication

The developmental pathway for human megakaryocytes remains unclear and the definition of pure unipotent megakaryocyte progenitor is still controversial. Using single-cell transcriptome analysis,we have identified a cluster of cells within immature hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell populations that specifically express genes related to the megakaryocyte lineage. We used CD41 as a positive marker to identify these cells within the CD34(+)CD38(+)IL-3Rα(dim)CD45RA(-) common myeloid progenitor (CMP) population. These cells lacked erythroid and granulocyte/macrophage potential,but exhibited robust differentiation into the megakaryocyte lineage at a high frequency,both in vivo and in vitro The efficiency and expansion potential of these cells exceeded those of conventional bipotent megakaryocyte/erythrocyte progenitors. Accordingly,the CD41(+) CMP was defined as a unipotent megakaryocyte progenitor (MegP) that is likely to represent the major pathway for human megakaryopoiesis,independent of canonical megakaryocyte-erythroid lineage bifurcation. In the bone marrow of patients with essential thrombocythemia,the MegP population was significantly expanded in the context of a high burden of Janus kinase 2 mutations. Thus,the prospectively isolatable and functionally homogeneous human MegP will be useful for the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying normal and malignant human hematopoiesis. View Publication

Cytosolic aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH),an enzyme responsible for oxidizing intracellular aldehydes,has an important role in ethanol,vitamin A,and cyclophosphamide metabolism. High expression of this enzyme in primitive stem cells from multiple tissues,including bone marrow and intestine,appears to be an important mechanism by which these cells are resistant to cyclophosphamide. However,although hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) express high levels of cytosolic ALDH,isolating viable HSC by their ALDH expression has not been possible because ALDH is an intracellular protein. We found that a fluorescent aldehyde,dansyl aminoacetaldehyde (DAAA),could be used in flow cytometry experiments to isolate viable mouse and human cells based on their ALDH content. The level of dansyl fluorescence exhibited by cells after incubation with DAAA paralleled cytosolic ALDH levels determined by Western blotting and the sensitivity of the cells to cyclophosphamide. Moreover,DAAA appeared to be a more sensitive means of assessing cytosolic ALDH levels than Western blotting. Bone marrow progenitors treated with DAAA proliferated normally. Furthermore,marrow cells expressing high levels of dansyl fluorescence after incubation with DAAA were enriched for hematopoietic progenitors. The ability to isolate viable cells that express high levels of cytosolic ALDH could be an important component of methodology for identifying and purifying HSC and for studying cyclophosphamide-resistant tumor cell populations. View Publication