Gene Transfer And Ex Vivo Manipulation Of Hematopoietic

Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Clinical and basic laboratory studies are directed at developing efficient and safe gene transduction and ex vivo manipulation strategies for hematopoietic cells, including stem and progenitor cells and lymphocytes, and using genetic marking techniques to answer important questions about in vivo hematopoiesis. In the rhesus model, shown to be the only predictive assay for human clinical results, we have focused on optimizing gene transfer to primitive stem and progenitor cells, and using genetic marking techniques to understand stem cell behavior in vivo.We have continued to further enhance gene transfer efficiency into rhesus engrafting cells, resulting in early levels of marked cells as high as 50-80%, with stable levels of 5-35% in all lineages, a range with clinical utility. We have found that actively-cycling transduced cells have an engraftment defect that can be corrected by a short culture on a fibronectin fragment with stem cell factor alone. The high levels have allowed us to continue to track the clonal contributions to hematopoiesis for the first time in a large animal model. We have continued to use inverse PCR, but have also developed a new technology that allows simultaneous assessment of multiple clonal contributions to peripheral blood populations. We have found a different population of engrafting cells that contribute for the first 1-2 months post-transplantation, that are then replaced by a very stable set of over 80 clones that contribute to all lineages now for over 3 years. We have begun to investigate the impact of cytokine therapy, radiation, and chemotherapy on the in vivo behavior of stem cell clones, using this powerful methodology. We have also begun to study the contributions of these clones to other tissues, including endothelium and muscle, and have begun to investigate whether stem cell mobilized by cytokine treatment can contribute to regeneration of myocardium following infarction in the primate model.