scholarly journals High-level correction of the sickle mutation amplified in vivo during erythroid differentiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Magis ◽  
Mark A. DeWitt ◽  
Stacia K. Wyman ◽  
Jonathan T. Vu ◽  
Seok-Jin Heo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Genetic Disorders ◽  
Erythroid Differentiation ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Curative Therapy ◽  
Human Hscs ◽  
High Level

ABSTRACTSickle Cell Disease (SCD), one of the world’s most common genetic disorders, causes anemia and progressive multiorgan damage that typically shortens lifespan by decades; currently there is no broadly applicable curative therapy. Here we show that Cas9 RNP-mediated gene editing with an ssDNA oligonucleotide donor yields markerless correction of the sickle mutation in more than 30% of long-term engrafting human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), using a selection-free protocol that is directly applicable to a clinical setting. We further find that in vivo erythroid differentiation markedly enriches for corrected ß-globin alleles. Adoption of a high-fidelity Cas9 variant demonstrates that this approach can yield efficient editing with almost no off-target events. These findings indicate that the sickle mutation can be corrected in human HSCs at curative levels with a streamlined protocol that is ready to be translated into a therapy.ONE SENTENCE SUMMARYCas9-mediated correction of the sickle mutation in human hematopoietic stem cells can be accomplished at curative levels.

scholarly journals Highly potent human hematopoietic stem cells first emerge in the intraembryonic aorta-gonad-mesonephros region

2011 ◽  
Vol 208 (12) ◽  
pp. 2417-2427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrejs Ivanovs ◽  
Stanislav Rybtsov ◽  
Lindsey Welch ◽  
Richard A. Anderson ◽  
Marc L. Turner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Immunodeficient Mice ◽  
Adult Organism ◽  
Human Hscs ◽  
High Level ◽  
Very High

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) emerge during embryogenesis and maintain hematopoiesis in the adult organism. Little is known about the embryonic development of human HSCs. We demonstrate that human HSCs emerge first in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region, specifically in the dorsal aorta, and only later appear in the yolk sac, liver, and placenta. AGM region cells transplanted into immunodeficient mice provide long-term high level multilineage hematopoietic repopulation. Human AGM region HSCs, although present in low numbers, exhibit a very high self-renewal potential. A single HSC derived from the AGM region generates at least 300 daughter HSCs in primary recipients, which disseminate throughout the entire recipient bone marrow and are retransplantable. These findings highlight the vast regenerative potential of the earliest human HSCs and set a new standard for in vitro generation of HSCs from pluripotent stem cells for the purpose of regenerative medicine.

scholarly journals Ontogeny stage-independent and high-level clonal expansion in vitro of mouse hematopoietic stem cells stimulated by an engineered NUP98-HOX fusion transcription factor

Blood ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 118 (16) ◽  
pp. 4366-4376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Sekulovic ◽  
Maura Gasparetto ◽  
Véronique Lecault ◽  
Corinne A. Hoesli ◽  
David G. Kent ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Single Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Image Tracking ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
High Level

Abstract Achieving high-level expansion of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in vitro will have an important clinical impact in addition to enabling elucidation of their regulation. Here, we couple the ability of engineered NUP98-HOXA10hd expression to stimulate > 1000-fold net expansions of murine HSCs in 10-day cultures initiated with bulk lin−Sca-1+c-kit+ cells, with strategies to purify fetal and adult HSCs and analyze their expansion clonally. We find that NUP98-HOXA10hd stimulates comparable expansions of HSCs from both sources at ∼ 60% to 90% unit efficiency in cultures initiated with single cells. Clonally expanded HSCs consistently show balanced long-term contributions to the lymphoid and myeloid lineages without evidence of leukemogenic activity. Although effects on fetal and adult HSCs were indistinguishable, NUP98-HOXA10hd–transduced adult HSCs did not thereby gain a competitive advantage in vivo over freshly isolated fetal HSCs. Live-cell image tracking of single transduced HSCs cultured in a microfluidic device indicates that NUP98-HOXA10hd does not affect their proliferation kinetics, and flow cytometry confirmed the phenotype of normal proliferating HSCs and allowed reisolation of large numbers of expanded HSCs at a purity of 25%. These findings point to the effects of NUP98-HOXA10hd on HSCs in vitro being mediated by promoting self-renewal and set the stage for further dissection of this process.

scholarly journals CD66e Enrichment Enhances Repopulation of Human Long-Term Hematopoietic Stem Cells

Blood ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 2156-2156
Author(s):  
Kuiying Ma ◽  
Riguo Fang ◽  
Lingling Yu ◽  
Yongjian Zhang ◽  
Chao Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Surface Markers ◽  
Post Transplantation ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Differentiation Pattern ◽  
Human Hscs

Abstract Gene-modified hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) therapy has demonstrated remarkable success for the treatment of inherited blood disorders. As the origin of hematologic hierarchy, HSCs play an essential role in sustaining life-long hematopoiesis. HSCs identification via reliable and robust bio-markers could facilitate the development of HSC gene therapy. Previous studies showed that long-term hematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSCs) were enriched in the Lin -CD34 +CD38 -CD45RA -CD90 +CD49f + population which could support long-term hematopoietic reconstitution. However, several of these surface markers proved to be unreliable when ex vivo culturing, such as CD38 and CD49f. Thus, HSCs characterization is still hindered by lacking bona-fide bio-markers, and consequently identification of long-term HSCs still needs time-consuming in vivo transplantation. To this end, we performed in vitro screening and comprehensive functional evaluation to identify a novel surface marker of human HSCs. During initial screening, a cell surface antigen screen panel (including 242 human cell surface markers) and human CD34 and CD90 antibodies were used to perform flow cytometry analysis on CD34 + HSPCs enriched from umbilical cord blood. Compared with CD34 + cell population, we found that CD66 (a,c,d,e), CD200 and CD48 positive cells were more enriched in CD34 +CD90 + subset. Previous studies indicated that HSCs cannot be maintained during in vitro culturing. By tracking these candidate surface markers based on this principle, CD66e was selected as the potential HSCs bio-marker. Next, we examined the in vivo hematologic repopulating potential of HSCs by limiting dilution assay (LDA) on immune-deficient mouse model. We sorted CD66e + and CD66e - subsets from CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - subpopulation, and transplanted into irradiated NOD-scid Il2rg −/− (NPG) mice respectively. At week16 post-transplantation, in contrast to the CD66e - group, CD66e + cells exhibited significantly higher reconstitution in peripheral blood (PB), bone marrow (BM) and spleen. Engraftment dynamics revealed that the CD66e - group were only capable of reconstitution 4 weeks post transplantation, even at the highest initial cell dose. Moreover, the CD66e - group displayed impaired multi-lineage differentiation pattern, especially in PB and BM samples, while the CD66e + group presented a robust multi-lineage reconstitution. Notably, LDA results showed that the CD66e + cells within CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - population contained 1 out of 529 SCID repopulating cells (SRC), almost 60-fold greater than the CD66e - fraction. To further investigate the long-term repopulating potential of the CD66e + cells, we performed the secondary transplantation collected from the BM cells of primary recipients. CD66e + cells presented significant higher repopulating activity than CD66e- subset in the secondary recipients. These findings reveal that the major cells with homing and long-term reconstitution capacity among CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - cells were CD66e positive. In order to determine the transcriptional profile of CD66e + cells, we performed RNA-sequencing analysis using the population of CD34 + cells, CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - cells, CD66e + and CD66e - cells within CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - subset. Remarkably, compared with other groups, the CD66e + cells displayed a bias toward the signature of HSC and early progenitors such as LMPP and CLP. Moreover, gene set enrichment analysis showed that hematopoietic lineage and long-term potentiation-related genes were highly enriched in the CD66e + cells. Further qRT-PCR experiment confirmed that several HSC-related genes were significantly higher expressed in CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA -CD66e + cells, compared to CD66e - population or CD34 + HSPCs, suggesting that the gene expression profile of CD66e + cells is reminiscent of HSC signature. Altogether, we demonstrate that CD66e is a robust functional HSC bio-marker that CD66e-positive population among CD34 +CD90 +CD45RA - cells exhibit typical HSC signature, enhanced in vivo engraftment potential and robust multilineage differentiation pattern, which will provide an invaluable tool to investigate the origin of human HSCs, paving the way for the therapeutic application. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Fang: EdiGene, Inc.: Current Employment.

Strategies to Protect Hematopoietic Stem Cells from Culture-Induced Stress Conditions

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Aerts-Kaya
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Ex Vivo ◽  
Stress Conditions ◽  
Stress Factors ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Induced Stress

: In contrast to their almost unlimited potential for expansion in vivo and despite years of dedicated research and optimization of expansion protocols, the expansion of Hematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs) in vitro remains remarkably limited. Increased understanding of the mechanisms that are involved in maintenance, expansion and differentiation of HSCs will enable the development of better protocols for expansion of HSCs. This will allow procurement of HSCs with long-term engraftment potential and a better understanding of the effects of the external influences in and on the hematopoietic niche that may affect HSC function. During collection and culture of HSCs, the cells are exposed to suboptimal conditions that may induce different levels of stress and ultimately affect their self-renewal, differentiation and long-term engraftment potential. Some of these stress factors include normoxia, oxidative stress, extra-physiologic oxygen shock/stress (EPHOSS), endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, replicative stress, and stress related to DNA damage. Coping with these stress factors may help reduce the negative effects of cell culture on HSC potential, provide a better understanding of the true impact of certain treatments in the absence of confounding stress factors. This may facilitate the development of better ex vivo expansion protocols of HSCs with long-term engraftment potential without induction of stem cell exhaustion by cellular senescence or loss of cell viability. This review summarizes some of available strategies that may be used to protect HSCs from culture-induced stress conditions.

scholarly journals Maintenance of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Through Regulation of Wnt and mTOR Pathways.

Blood ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 120 (21) ◽  
pp. 2309-2309
Author(s):  
Jian Huang ◽  
Peter S. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Signaling Pathways ◽  
Glycogen Synthase ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Mtor Inhibition ◽  
Self Renewal ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem

Abstract Abstract 2309 Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) maintain the ability to self-renew and to differentiate into all lineages of the blood. The signaling pathways regulating hematopoietic stem cell (HSCs) self-renewal and differentiation are not well understood. We are very interested in understanding the roles of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (Gsk3) and the signaling pathways regulated by Gsk3 in HSCs. In our previous study (Journal of Clinical Investigation, December 2009) using loss of function approaches (inhibitors, RNAi, and knockout) in mice, we found that Gsk3 plays a pivotal role in controlling the decision between self-renewal and differentiation of HSCs. Disruption of Gsk3 in bone marrow transiently expands HSCs in a b-catenin dependent manner, consistent with a role for Wnt signaling. However, in long-term repopulation assays, disruption of Gsk3 progressively depletes HSCs through activation of mTOR. This long-term HSC depletion is prevented by mTOR inhibition and exacerbated by b-catenin knockout. Thus GSK3 regulates both Wnt and mTOR signaling in HSCs, with opposing effects on HSC self-renewal such that inhibition of Gsk3 in the presence of rapamycin expands the HSC pool in vivo. In the current study, we found that suppression of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway, an established nutrient sensor, combined with activation of canonical Wnt/ß-catenin signaling, allows the ex vivo maintenance of human and mouse long-term HSCs under cytokine-free conditions. We also show that combining two clinically approved medications that activate Wnt/ß-catenin signaling and inhibit mTOR increases the number of long-term HSCs in vivo. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

scholarly journals The replication rate of human hematopoietic stem cells in vivo

Blood ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 117 (17) ◽  
pp. 4460-4466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra N. Catlin ◽  
Lambert Busque ◽  
Rosemary E. Gale ◽  
Peter Guttorp ◽  
Janis L. Abkowitz
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Cord Blood Transplantation ◽  
Cell Labeling ◽  
Replication Rate ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Daughter Cells ◽  
Blood Transplantation ◽  
Human Hscs

Abstract Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) replicate (self-renew) to create 2 daughter cells with capabilities equivalent to their parent, as well as differentiate, and thus can both maintain and restore blood cell production. Cell labeling with division-sensitive markers and competitive transplantation studies have been used to estimate the replication rate of murine HSCs in vivo. However, these methods are not feasible in humans and surrogate assays are required. In this report, we analyze the changing ratio with age of maternal/paternal X-chromosome phenotypes in blood cells from females and infer that human HSCs replicate on average once every 40 weeks (range, 25-50 weeks). We then confirm this estimate with 2 independent approaches, use the estimate to simulate human hematopoiesis, and show that the simulations accurately reproduce marrow transplantation data. Our simulations also provide evidence that the number of human HSCs increases from birth until adolescence and then plateaus, and that the ratio of contributing to quiescent HSCs in humans significantly differs from mouse. In addition, they suggest that human marrow failure, such as the marrow failure that occurs after umbilical cord blood transplantation and with aplastic anemia, results from insufficient numbers of early progenitor cells, and not the absence of HSCs.

scholarly journals Negative Regulation of the Differentiation of Flk2− CD34− LSK Hematopoietic Stem Cells by EKLF/KLF1

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (22) ◽  
pp. 8448
Author(s):  
Chun-Hao Hung ◽  
Keh-Yang Wang ◽  
Yae-Huei Liou ◽  
Jing-Ping Wang ◽  
Anna Yu-Szu Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Gene Knockout ◽  
Hematopoietic Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Stem And Progenitor Cells ◽  
Interesting Correlation ◽  
Regulatory Effects ◽  
High Level

Erythroid Krüppel-like factor (EKLF/KLF1) was identified initially as a critical erythroid-specific transcription factor and was later found to be also expressed in other types of hematopoietic cells, including megakaryocytes and several progenitors. In this study, we have examined the regulatory effects of EKLF on hematopoiesis by comparative analysis of E14.5 fetal livers from wild-type and Eklf gene knockout (KO) mouse embryos. Depletion of EKLF expression greatly changes the populations of different types of hematopoietic cells, including, unexpectedly, the long-term hematopoietic stem cells Flk2− CD34− Lin− Sca1+ c-Kit+ (LSK)-HSC. In an interesting correlation, Eklf is expressed at a relatively high level in multipotent progenitor (MPP). Furthermore, EKLF appears to repress the expression of the colony-stimulating factor 2 receptor β subunit (CSF2RB). As a result, Flk2− CD34− LSK-HSC gains increased differentiation capability upon depletion of EKLF, as demonstrated by the methylcellulose colony formation assay and by serial transplantation experiments in vivo. Together, these data demonstrate the regulation of hematopoiesis in vertebrates by EKLF through its negative regulatory effects on the differentiation of the hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, including Flk2− CD34− LSK-HSCs.

scholarly journals The chemokine GROβ mobilizes early hematopoietic stem cells characterized by enhanced homing and engraftment

Blood ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 860-869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiji Fukuda ◽  
Huimin Bian ◽  
Andrew G. King ◽  
Louis M. Pelus
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Platelet Recovery ◽  
And Function ◽  
Stimulating Factor ◽  
Cxcr4 Axis

Abstract Mobilized peripheral blood hematopoietic stem cells (PBSCs) demonstrate accelerated engraftment compared with bone marrow; however, mechanisms responsible for enhanced engraftment remain unknown. PBSCs mobilized by GROβ (GROβΔ4/CXCL2Δ4) or the combination of GROβΔ4 plus granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) restore neutrophil and platelet recovery faster than G-CSF–mobilized PBSCs. To determine mechanisms responsible for faster hematopoietic recovery, we characterized immunophenotype and function of the GROβ-mobilized grafts. PBSCs mobilized by GROβΔ4 alone or with G-CSF contained significantly more Sca-1+-c-kit+-lineage− (SKL) cells and more primitive CD34−-SKL cells compared with cells mobilized by G-CSF and demonstrated superior competitive long-term repopulation activity, which continued to increase in secondary and tertiary recipients. GROβΔ4-mobilized SKL cells adhered better to VCAM-1+ endothelial cells compared with G-CSF–mobilized cells. GROβΔ4-mobilized PBSCs did not migrate well to the chemokine stromal derived factor (SDF)-1α in vitro that was associated with higher CD26 expression. However, GROβΔ4-mobilized SKL and c-Kit+ lineage− (KL) cells homed more efficiently to marrow in vivo, which was not affected by selective CXCR4 and CD26 antagonists. These data suggest that GROβΔ4-mobilized PBSCs are superior in reconstituting long-term hematopoiesis, which results from differential mobilization of early stem cells with enhanced homing and long-term repopulating capacity. In addition, homing and engraftment of GROβΔ4-mobilized cells is less dependent on the SDF-1α/CXCR4 axis.

Exhaustion of Donor Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Lethally-Irradiated Hosts Can Be Sbstantially Mitigated by Targeting p18INK4C.

Blood ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 104 (11) ◽  
pp. 1200-1200
Author(s):  
Hui Yu ◽  
Youzhong Yuan ◽  
Xianmin Song ◽  
Feng Xu ◽  
Hongmei Shen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Bone Marrow ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Kinase Inhibitor ◽  
Hematopoietic Cells ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Total Period ◽  
Over Expression

Abstract Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are significantly restricted in their ability to regenerate themselves in the irradiated hosts and this exhausting effect appears to be accelerated in the absence of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (CKI), p21. Our recent study demonstrated that unlike p21 absence, deletion of the distinct CKI, p18 results in a strikingly positive effect on long-term engraftment owing to increased self-renewing divisions in vivo (Yuan et al, 2004). To test the extent to which enhanced self-renewal in the absence of p18 can persist over a prolonged period of time, we first performed the classical serial bone marrow transfer (sBMT). The activities of hematopoietic cells from p18−/− cell transplanted mice were significantly higher than those from p18+/+ cell transplanted mice during the serial transplantation. To our expectation, there was no detectable donor p18+/+ HSC progeny in the majority (4/6) of recipients after three rounds of sBMT. However, we observed significant engraftment levels (66.7% on average) of p18-null progeny in all recipients (7/7) within a total period of 22 months. In addition, in follow-up with our previous study involving the use of competitive bone marrow transplantation (cBMT), we found that p18−/− HSCs during the 3rd cycle of cBMT in an extended long-term period of 30 months were still comparable to the freshly isolated p18+/+ cells from 8 week-old young mice. Based on these two independent assays and the widely-held assumption of 1-10/105 HSC frequency in normal unmanipulated marrow, we estimated that p18−/− HSCs had more than 50–500 times more regenerative potential than p18+/+ HSCs, at the cellular age that is equal to a mouse life span. Interestingly, p18 absence was able to significantly loosen the accelerated exhaustion of hematopoietic repopulation caused by p21 deficiency as examined in the p18/p21 double mutant cells with the cBMT model. This data directly indicates the opposite effect of these two molecules on HSC durability. To define whether p18 absence may override the regulatory mechanisms that maintain the HSC pool size within the normal range, we performed the transplantation with 80 highly purified HSCs (CD34-KLS) and then determined how many competitive reconstitution units (CRUs) were regenerated in the primary recipients by conducting secondary transplantation with limiting dilution analysis. While 14 times more CRUs were regenerated in the primary recipients transplanted with p18−/−HSCs than those transplanted with p18+/+ HSCs, the level was not beyond that found in normal non-transplanted mice. Therefore, the expansion of HSCs in the absence of p18 is still subject to some inhibitory regulation, perhaps exerted by the HSC niches in vivo. Such a result was similar to the effect of over-expression of the transcription factor, HoxB4 in hematopoietic cells. However, to our surprise, the p18 mRNA level was not significantly altered by over-expression of HoxB4 in Lin-Sca-1+ cells as assessed by real time PCR (n=4), thereby suggesting a HoxB4-independent transcriptional regulation on p18 in HSCs. Taken together, our current results shed light on strategies aimed at sustaining the durability of therapeutically transplanted HSCs for a lifetime treatment. It also offers a rationale for the feasibility study intended to temporarily target p18 during the early engraftment for therapeutic purposes.

Long-Term In Vivo Expression from a Self-Inactivating Lentiviral Vector Flanked by a Chromatin Insulator Element.

Blood ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 106 (11) ◽  
pp. 1289-1289
Author(s):  
Ping Xia ◽  
Richard Emmanuel ◽  
Kuo Isabel ◽  
Malik Punam
Keyword(s):  
Stem Cells ◽  
Bone Marrow ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem Cells ◽  
Lentiviral Vector ◽  
Gfp Expression ◽  
Hematopoietic Stem ◽  
Insulator Element ◽  
Gfp Fluorescence

Abstract We have previously shown that self-inactivating lentiviral vectors infect quiescent hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), express long-term, resist proviral silencing in HSC and express in a lineage specific manner. However, their random integration into the host chromosome results in variable expression, dependent upon the flanking host chromatin (Mohamedali et al, Mol. Therapy 2004). Moreover, the recent occurrence of leukemogenesis from activation of a cellular oncogene by the viral enhancer elements calls for safer vector designs, with expression cassettes that can be ‘insulated’ from flanking cellular genes. We analyzed the role of the chicken β-globin locus hypersensitive site 4 insulator element (cHS4) in a self-inactivating (SIN) lentiviral vector in the RBC progeny of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) in long term in vivo. We designed an erythroid-specific SIN-lentiviral vector I8HKGW, expressing GFP driven by the human ankyrin gene promoter and containing two erythroid-specific enhancer elements and compared it to an analogous vector I8HKGW-I, where the cHS4 insulator was inserted in the SIN deletion to flank the I8HKGW expression cassette at both ends upon integration. First, murine erythroleukemia (MEL) cells were transduced at <5% transduction efficiency and GFP+ cells were sorted to generate clones. Single copy MEL clones showed no difference in the mean GFP fluorescence intensity (MFI) between the I8HKGW+ and the I8HKGW-I+ MEL clones. However, there was a reduction in the chromatin position effect variegation (PEV), reflected by reduced coefficient of variation of GFP expression (CV) in I8HKGW-I clones (n=115; P<0.01), similar to in vitro results reported by Ramezani et al (Blood 2003). Next, we examined for expression and PEV in the RBC progeny of HSC, using the secondary murine bone marrow transplant model. Lethally irradiated C57Bl6 (CD45.2) mice were transplanted with I8HKGW and I8HKGW-I transduced B6SJL (CD45.1) Sca+Lin- HSC and 4–6 months later, secondary transplants were performed. Mice were analyzed 3–4 months following secondary transplants (n=43). While expression from both I8HKGW and I8HKGW-I vectors appeared similar in secondary mice (46±6.0% vs. 48±3.6% GFP+ RBC; MFI 31±2.6 vs. 29±1.4), there were 0.37 vs. 0.22 copies/cell in I8HKGW and I8HKGW-I secondary recipients, respectively (n=43), suggesting that the probability of GFP expression from I8HKGW-I vectors was superior when equalized for vector copy. The CV of GFP fluorescence in RBC was remarkably reduced to 55±1.7 in I8HKGW-I vs. 196±32 in I8HKGW RBC (P<0.001). We therefore, analyzed these data at a clonal level in secondary CFU-S and tertiary CFU-S. The I8HKGW-I secondary CFU-S had more GFP+ cells (32.4±4.4%) vs. I8HKGW CFU-S (8.1±1.2%, n=143, P<0.1x10E-11). Similarly, I8HKGW-I tertiary CFU-S also had more GFP+ cells (25±1.8%) vs. I8HKGW CFU-S (6.3±0.8%, n=166, P<0.3x10E-10). We also plated bone marrow from secondary mice in methylcellulose and analyzed GFP expression in individual BFU-E. The I8HKGW-I tertiary BFU-E had more GFP+ cells (28±3.9%) vs. I8HKGW BFU-E (11±5%, n=50, P<0.03) with significantly reduced CV (67 vs 125, n=50, P<6.6X10E-7). Taken together, the ‘insulated’ erythroid-specific SIN-lentiviral vector increased the probability of expression of proviral integrants and reduced PEV in vivo, resulting in higher, consistent transgene expression in the erythroid cell progeny of HSC. In addition, the enhancer blocking effect of the cHS4, although not tested here, would further improve bio-safety of these vectors for gene therapy for RBC disorders.

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