Ex vivo expansion of hematopoietic progenitor cells and mature cells

Hematopoietic cells have the potential for providing benefit in a variety o f clinical settings. These include tells for support of patients undergoing high-dose chemotherapy, as a target for replacement gent! therapy, and as a source of cells for immunotherapy. The limitation to many of these applic ations has been the total absolute number of defined target cells. Therefor e many investigators have explored methods to culture hematopoietic cells i n vitro to increase the numbers of these cells, Studies attempting to expan d hematopoietic stem cells, progenitor cells, and mature cells in vitro hav e become possible over the past decade due to the availability of recombina nt growth factors and cell selection technologies. To date, no studies have demonstrated convincing data on the expansion of true stem cells, and so t he focus of this review is the expansion of committed progenitor cells and mature cells. A number of clinical studies have been preformed using: a var iety of culture conditions, and several studies are currently in progress t hat explore the use of ex vivo expanded cells. These studies will be discus sed in this review. There are evolving data that suggest that there are rea l clinical benefits associated with the use of the expanded cells; however, we are still at the early stages of understanding how to optimally culture different cell populations. The next decade should determine what culture conditions and what cell populations are needed for a range of clinical app lications. (C) 2001 International Society for Experimental Hematology. Publ ished by Elsevier Science Inc.