The Interplay between Transcription Factor SALL4 and Histone Modifiers in Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells

Currently, there is a growing need for culturing hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPCs) ex vivo for various clinical applications such as HSPC transplantation and gene therapy. For many patients with hematologic, genetic, and immune diseases, HSPC transplants can be a life-saving treatment. There are over 20,000 patients in the US receiving HSPC transplantation yearly [1]. About two-thirds of these cases are autologous and the rest are allogeneic transplants. The sources of the HSPCs are from peripheral blood mobilized stem/progenitor cells (PBSC), cord blood (CB) and bone marrow (BM). Umbilical cord blood can be an excellent HSPC donor source; however, its use is severely constrained by the limited HSPC numbers in one single cord blood unit. Developing technologies that allow ex vivo expansion of cord blood will be highly beneficial for the clinical application of HSPC transplants. In addition, there is a growing need for culturing PBSC in vitro for transplant-related applications such as gene therapy or genome-editing via TALENs or CRISPR/Cas9 [2,3]. Furthermore, the same PBSC in vitro culture technique can be used for HSCP expansion for poor autologous mobilizations to avoid additional collections. Establishing culture conditions that can maintain and expand HSPCs from PBSC ex vivo will be beneficial to these clinical applications.