Recovering Progenitor Cells from Blood

Circulating stem cells known as progenitor cells are an attractive source for many cell therapies because of easy access through a vein. These cells, which have the potential to become multiple cells types, represent potential therapies for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, end-stage kidney disease, muscular dystrophy, bone marrow transplant and organ replacement.

Despite their easy access, these cells are present in only very small numbers in the circulation, which makes their collection difficult. As reported in Tissue Engineering, Part C, we developed a system to efficiently and selectively collect these cells from circulation based on their expression of the CD133+ protein. In a sheep model, this system generated 600-fold more target cells than conventional techniques. The increased cell recovery enables the generation of enough cells for therapy nearly a third of the time.

Currrent methods for collecting these cells are limited by the volume of blood that can be safely removed from a living donor. With the new system, cells not captured by the system are returned to the body, thus preserving other cells types.

Our results suggest that this system allows for isolation of a much larger population of progenitor cells, which significantly minimizes the time need to expand cells in the laboratory to attain the required number for therapy. These cells have significant potential and are reported capable of generating populations of cells that line blood vessels, smooth muscle, liver cells, neural cells and cells of the body’s blood production system.

By substituting the CD133# antibody for other types, the system could be used to isolate other cell types that express different cell surface markers.

(Efficient Recovery of Endothelial Progenitors for Clinical Translation. Tillman BW, Yazdani SK, Geary RL, Corriere MA, Atala A, Yoo JJ. Tissue Eng Part C Methods. 2009 Jan 6. [Epub ahead of print]