Ex vivo expansion of murine and human hematopoietic stem cells.

Abstract

Hematopoietic stem cells have the capacity to self-renew and give rise to the entirety of the mature blood and immune system throughout the lifespan of an organism. Here, we describe methods to isolate and culture murine bone marrow (BM) CD34(-)ckit(+)Sca1(+)Lineage(-) (CD34(-)KSL) hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We also describe a method to measure functional HSC content via the competitive repopulation assay. Furthermore, we summarize methods to isolate and culture human CD34(+)CD38(-)Lineage(-) cells which are enriched for human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.