Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cell-based or umbilical vein endothelial cell-based serum-free coculture with cytokines supports the ex vivo expansion/maintenance of cord blood hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells

Background: The umbilical cord blood (UCB) has been widely accepted as an alternative source of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) for transplantation, and its use in adults is still restricted because of low absolute numbers. To overcome this obstacle, expansion of UCB-HSPCs under feeder cell-based coculture is a promising possibility. In this study, we explored UCB-CD34+ cells ex vivo expansion using Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells (WJ-MSCs) or umbilical vein endothelial cells (UVECs) as feeder layer-based serum-free coculture system with a cocktail of cytokines.

Methods: UCB-CD34+ cells were cultured in five different coculture conditions composed of umbilical cord stromal cells (WJ-MSCs or UVECs) with or without a cocktail of cytokines (SCF, FLT3L, and TPO). The cultured cells were harvested at day 10 and analyzed for phenotypes and functionalities, including total nuclear cells (TNCs), CD34+ cells, CD34+CD38- cells, colony-forming unit (CFU) for committed progenitors, and long-term culture initiating cells (LTC-ICs) for HSPCs.

Results: Our work showed the numbers of TNC cells, CD34+ cells, and CD34+CD38- cells were expanded under five coculture conditions, and the feeder layer-based cocultures further promoted the expansion. The numbers of colonies of CFU-GM, CFU-E/BFU-E, and CFU-GEMM in the cocultures with cytokines were significantly higher than their counterparts at day 0 (p < 0.05), while no significant difference (p > 0.05) in those without the addition of cytokines. The numbers of LTC-ICs were increased both under the WJ-MSCs and UVECs with cytokine cocultures, but only in the UVECs group showed a significant difference (p < 0.05), and were decreased under conditions without cytokine (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that both WJ-MSCs and UVECs as feeder layer could efficiently support the expansion of UCB-CD34+ cells in synergy with SCF, FLT3L, and TPO under serum-free culture condition. The UVECs combined with the 3GF cytokine cocktail could maintain the growth of LTC-ICs derived from UCB-CD34+ cells and even expand to some extent.