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The self-renewal of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is key for life-long maintenance of the blood system and the curative capacity of clinical HSC transplantation. However, while in vivo HSC self-renewal capacity has been well-described, existing culture conditions poorly support ex vivo HSC self-renewal and afford only a very limited window to study or modify HSCs in-a-dish. By taking a reductionist optimization approach, we have developed a simple culture platform that supports functional mouse HSCs ex vivo over 1-2 months. Importantly, we identified the synthetic polymer polyvinyl alcohol as a superior, inexpensive, and chemically-defined alternative to serum albumin supplements, which have long represented a major source of biological contaminants and batch-to-batch variability in HSC cultures. Limiting dilution transplantation analysis of day-28 HSC cultures estimated a ∼900-fold expansion of functional HSCs (based on >1% multilineage engraftment at 16-weeks post-transplantation) with secondary transplantation analysis estimating >200-fold expansion of serially-engraftable long-term HSCs. HSCs could also be expanded clonally using this system, demonstrating bona fide ex vivo HSC self-renewal. The large numbers of functional HSCs generated by this long-term ex vivo expansion protocol even enabled HSC transplantation in nonconditioned immunocompetent and immunodeficient recipients. Finally, this albumin-free and GMP-compatible culture system also supported human HSCs ex vivo, as determined by long-term engraftment in NSG mice. Thus, our novel HSC culture platform provides an important new tool to interrogate HSC self-renewal and lineage commitment, and also suggests a novel approach in clinical HSC transplantation. |
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