Ex vivo hematopoietic cell expansion: a theoretical and technological challenge

Preclinical experience has shown that it is possible to maintain and expand hematopoietic cells in liquid culture systems by provision of optimal combinations of colony-stimulating factors (CSF). Ex vivo hematopoietic cell expansion (HCE) would be expected to reduce harvesting time and effort and could also decrease the infusion dose necessary for hematopoietic reconstitution after bone marrow transplantation. In addition, ex vivo expanded cells might be of value for therapeutic gene transfer. The central question in ex vivo HCE is whether the CSF combinations employed provide not only amplification of the late progenitor pools, but also maintenance or expansion of the stem cell compartment to ensure long term engraftment. Choice of CSF and experimental parameters in the culture system appear to be the most critical factors influencing the outcome of strategies for ex vivo HCE. Moreover, it is essential to define the goal of HCE and to adapt the experimental conditions to obtain the required cell populations. In future work, it remains to test the potential applicability of ex vivo expanded cells and to carefully monitor the possibility of the expansion of tumoral cells in ex vivo proliferation systems.