Co-culture of HSCs and MSCs derived from umbilical cord blood using human autologous serum
Song KD., Liu TQ., Yin YQ., Guo WH., Fang MY., Shi FX., Zhu LL., Wu XT., Ma XH., Cui ZF.
The feasibility of co-culturing hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from human umbilical cord blood (UCB) using cytodex-3 microcarriers is investigated in order to assess it as a possibility for future clinical therapies. Considering the safety requirements of clinical applications, human autologous serum (HAS) collected from UCB is used to replace the widely-used fetal bovine serum (FBS). Following to this, after UCB-HSCs and UCB-MSCs ex vivo culture, both can be harvested simultaneously. Besides, after their co-culture, the two different types of stem cells can be easily separated by sedimentation due to the density differences between cytodex-3 microcarriers (containing adherent MSCs) and the suspended HSCs. In order to optimize the culture conditions, the effect of the content of HAS (2.8%, 5.6%, 8.3% and 11.1%) on the expansion of UCB-MSCs and UCB-HSCs is assessed. The results indicate that the expansion of UCB-HSCs is at least (1.88±0.33) fold while supplied with 5.6% HAS, better than that in the other groups, while it has little effect on the expansion of UCB-MSCs. It is concluded that the optimal content of human autologous serum for the co-culture conditions herein reported is about 5.6%. Finally, the co-culture system developed and herein reported is feasible to provide expanded UCB-HSCs and UCB-MSCs for clinical applications.