Distinct Human Cell Populations Produce Rapidly Detectable Levels of Neutrophils and Platelets in NOD/SCID-IL-2Receptor Gamma Chain Null Mice Transgenically Engineered to Produce Human Myeloid Growth Factors

Abstract 1892 Cord blood (CB) is becoming an increasingly utilized source of cells for cancer patients who are eligible for therapies that require a transplant to rescue them from toxic side effects on their own hematopoietic cells but lack a suitable HLA-matched donor. This strategy is now routinely used in children, but delayed neutrophil and platelet recovery remain unsolved problems and these problems are exacerbated in adults. To address this issue, we first surveyed the variability in 8 individual CB harvests of parameters routinely used to predict the utility of CB units as transplants (i.e., CD34+ and in vitro myeloid clonogenic progenitor cell frequencies). In addition, we compared their 3-week outputs of CD33/15/66+ cells (neutrophils and monocytes) in the marrow and CD41a+ platelets in the blood of sublethally irradiated NSG mice after the IV transplantation of ∼104 CD34+ cells. These latter assessments were based on ongoing experiments in our lab demonstrating that, at this transplant dose, the outputs measured are linearly related to the number of CD34+ cells injected and detect transplantable progenitor cell types that are biologically distinct from cells with longer term repopulating activity. The results showed variation between CBs in all parameters, a marked lack of correlation between %CD34+ cells or % total CFCs in initial cells and %CD41a+ cells regenerated at 3 weeks/104 CD34+ cells transplanted (R=-0.28 and 0.35, respectively), and a weak correlation between the %CD33/15/66+ cells regenerated at 3 weeks/104 CD34+ cells transplanted and %CD34+ cells or % total CFCs in the initial CB cells (R values of 0.46–0.64). However, although engraftment of primitive human cells in NSG mice appears highly efficient, terminal differentiation of the myeloid lineages in these mice is poor. One possible explanation for this deficiency in mature cell output is that several of the murine growth factors responsible for regulating the production and release of these cells into the circulation in mice are not cross-reactive on human cells. We therefore hypothesized that engineering NSG mice to produce the human counterparts might significantly improve the detection of short term repopulating human cells whose maximum clone size might be limiting in NSG mice. Three potential relevant factors are IL-3, GM-CSF and Steel factor. We therefore backcrossed a line of transgenic NS mice we had created to express human IL-3, GM-CSF and Steel factor onto the NSG strain to produce homozygous NSG mice expressing all 3 of these human factors (NSG-3GS mice). We then compared these NSG-3GS mice with NSG mice in terms of their ability to stimulate the production within 3 weeks of human neutrophil-monocytes and platelets from intravenously transplanted CD34+ cells isolated from pooled CB harvests. The results showed that the levels of neutrophils and monocytes generated in the marrow of the NSG-3GS mice were elevated to levels of >50% of the marrow in 90% of the mice, even at the lowest number of CD34+ cells transplanted. Human neutrophils and monocytes were also elevated in the blood of the NSG-3GS mice where, despite the observed “saturation” of the marrow, there was a linear dose-response in the number of human neutrophils and monocytes present in the blood with increasing CD34+ cells infused. These findings are consistent with the reported activities of these molecules in vitro and in patients suggesting their physiological relevance in this murine xenograft model. We next utilized this assay to characterize the cells responsible for the neutrophil/monocyte and platelet repopulating activities detected in NSG-3GS mice. Preliminary assessment of the CD34+CD45RA- population on the basis of CD123 (IL-3 receptor alpha chain) expression indicates that the CD123+ fraction is enriched for short term (3-week) neutrophil/monocyte repopulating activity, while the CD123- fraction is enriched for short term (3-week) platelet repopulating activity. In summary, NSG-3GS mice significantly enhance the output of human cells with short term human myeloid repopulating ability thereby enabling neutrophil/monocyte outputs as well as platelet outputs to be assessed by analysis of peripheral blood samples. We have also used this tool to obtain evidence that these two outputs are derived from distinct cell types. Direct quantification of these may add to future predictions of graft quality. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Differentiation Profiling of Marrow Stem Cells: A Megakaryocytic Hotspot and the Continuum Model of Hematopoiesis

Directed differentiation is defined as the ability to program a stem cell at the most primitive level while it still has its reproductive and full proliferative potential in contrast to ex-vivo expansion where the stem cells are forced into specific lineage commitments, limiting the overall therapeutic utility. Standard hierarchical models of hematopoiesis suppose an ordered system in which stem cells and progenitors with specific fixed differentiation potentials exist. We show here that the potential of marrow stem cells to differentiate changes reversibly with cytokine-induced cell cycle transit. This along with other data strongly suggest that stem cell regulation is not based on the classic hierarchical model, but instead more on a functional continuum and believe that sensitivity to cytokines change as a stem/progenitor cells goes through cell cycle transit. We previously have shown that stem cells reversibly shift their engraftment phenotype with cytokine induced cell cycle transit. Further work has shown that adhesion protein, cytokine receptor, gene expression and progenitor phenotypes also shift. Evolving data indicate the phenotype of murine marrow stem cells reversible change with cell cycle transit. Murine experiments have been performed on highly purified quiescent G0–1 lineagenegativerhodaminelowHoeschtlow (LRH) marrow stem cells. When exposed to thrombopoietin, FLT3-ligand and steel factor, they synchronously pass through cell cycle as measured by propidium iodide, cell doublings and tritiated thymidine. LRH cells enter S-phase in a synchronized fashion by 18 hours, leave S-phase at 40–42 hours and divide between 44–48 hours. The capacity of these cells to respond to a differentiation inductive signal (granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor and steel factor) is altered at different points in cell cycle. We have demonstrated differentiation hotspots on a cell cycle continuum (Exp Heme35:96, 2007). In this work we showed marked but reversible increases in differentiation potential to megakryocyte and granulocytes at different phases of a single cytokine induced cell cycle passage of highly purified quiescent murine LRH marrow stem cells. We have reproducibly induced directed stem cell differentiation by capitalizing on inherent changes in sensitivities to inductive cytokine signals in the context of cell cycle position. We have found that using a differentiation cytokine cocktail of G-CSF at 0.075ng/ml, GM-CSF at 0.0375ng/ml and steel factor at 50ng/ml, we were able to see enhanced megakaryopoiesis occurring 14-days after culture in those LRH stem cells that were in early to mid S-phase at time of inductive signaling. We have now shown that a megakaryocyte hotspot clusters around giving an inductive signal after 32-hours in primary culture; the G1/S interface, and that dramatic reversible changes in differentiation potential occur over half hour time intervals. We have confirmed this data by looking at LRH cells through cell cycle transit after initial cell division showing that a megakaryocyte hotspot occurs in two sequential cell cycles and still tied to S-phase at time of inductive signaling of the daughter cells. This hotspot has been demonstrated on a clonal basis, although the kinetics of the hotspot shifts when clonal as opposed to population studies are carried out. An important issue is whether in vitro cytokine exposure, separate from cell cycle status, determines the existence of the hotspot. To address this, we used Hoechst 33342 dye content to assist in separation of different cell cycle fractions (G0–1, early, mid and late components of S, G2/M) of lineage negative Sca-1+ stem cells, a cycling stem/progenitor cell population in which approximately 20% of the cells are in S-phase at isolation. These cells were only exposed to the differentiation cytokines and showed a megakaryocyte hotspot present in only early S-phase cells after 14-days of culture, showing that in vitro cell cycle phase determined the presence of the hotspot, separate from cytokine exposure. These data indicate that differentiation potential of marrow stem cells exists on a cell cycle related continuum and that this potential can be demonstrated on a single cell basis. Stem cell differentiation hotspots may eventually be utilized to alter repopulation kinetics after bone marrow transplantation improving recovery time of platelets and neutrophils, translating into improved outcomes.