In vitro expansion of human megakaryocytes as a tool for studying megakaryocytic development and function

Research on normal human megakaryopoiesis has been limited by technical problems in obtaining megakaryocytic cells in sufficient quantities for experimental purposes. We describe here an ex vivo serum-free liquid culture system to expand normal human megakaryoblasts from purified bone marrow-, cord blood- or peripheral blood-derived CD34(+) cells. The early megakaryocytic cells are expanded in the presence of recombinant thrombopoietin (TpO) and interleukin-3 (IL-3), and if necessary further purified by employing anti-CD61 immunomagnetic beads. Our expansion system generates normal human megakaryoblasts in quantities sufficient to perform various functional studies on these cells as well as to isolate from them proteins and mRNA for molecular analysis. Megakaryocytic cells isolated from these cultures (i) express several markers characteristic of this lineage (CD41, CD61, CD62 P, CXCR-4, PAR-1, etc.), (ii) respond by calcium flux and phosphorylation of various intracellular proteins to stimulation by thrombin and (iii) adhere to fibrinogen and vitronectin. However, human megakaryoblasts derived from the cultures supplemented with TpO + IL-3, in contrast to murine megakaryocytic cells cultured under similar conditions, display poor polyploidization and do not release platelets. Since IL-3 has been reported to inhibit final maturation of megakaryocytic cells, we recently modified our expansion strategy. In this new approach CD34(+) cells are first expanded for 11 days in the presence of TpO + IL-3. Then megakaryoblasts derived are expanded for an additional 7 days supplemented with TpO only. We found that megakaryocytic cells expanded in this 'two step culture' model are more differentiated, are polyploid and release platelets. The model described here provides normal human megakaryoblasts in adequate numbers, to study megakaryopoiesis and megakaryocyte function.