Engineering a Human Bone Marrow Model: A Case Study on ex Vivo Erythropoiesis

Bone marrow, with its intricate, three‐dimensional tissue structure facilitating cell−cell interactions, provides a microenvironment supporting the production of hundreds of billions of multilineal blood cells everyday. We have developed a three‐dimensional bone marrow culture system in which marrow cells are cultured in a reactor packed with porous microspheres. The culture supports a three‐dimensional growth configuration and multilineal hemopoiesis mimicking the bone marrow in vivo . We studied ex vivo human erythropoiesis using the three‐dimensional culture system. The system sustained extensive erythropoiesis at low erythropoietin concentrations (0.2 U/mL), plus stem cell factor, interleukin‐3, granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor, and insulin‐like growth factor‐I. Erythroid cell production lasted for more than 5 weeks, and the percentage of erythroid cells in the nonadherent cell population was approximately 60%. Flow cytometric analysis using cell surface markers specific for erythroid cells (CD71 and glycophorin‐A) indicated that the culture produced early, intermediate, and late erythroid cells. As the culture progressed, the erythroid cell population shifted gradually toward mature cell types. When compared to the three‐dimensional culture, the traditional flask cultures failed to support extensive erythropoiesis under the same conditions. This indicates that the three‐dimensional bone marrow culture system provides a microenvironment conducive to erythropoiesis under more physiological conditions and is a better bone marrow model.