The construction of high efficiency human bone marrow tissue ex vivo.

The successful ex vivo reconstruction of human bone marrow is an extraordinarily important basic scientific and clinical goal. Fundamentally, the system is the paradigm of a complex interactive tissue, in which the proliferation and regulated differentiation of one parenchymal cell type (the hematopoietic stem cell) is governed by the surrounding stromal cells. Understanding and reproducing the molecular interactions between bone marrow stromal cells and stem cells in tissue culture models is therefore the critical step in successful bone marrow tissue culture. Clinically, successful reconstruction of human bone marrow would permit the controlled production of mature blood cells for transfusion therapy, and immature bone marrow stem cells for bone marrow transplantation. In approaching the bone marrow culture system, we recognize the critical role that hematopoietic growth factors (HGFs) play in hematopoiesis. Since stromal cells in traditional human bone marrow cultures produce little HGFs, we have begun by asking whether local supplementation of hematopoietic growth factors via genetically engineered stromal cells might augment hematopoiesis in liquid cultures. The results indicate that locally produced GM-CSF and IL-3 do augment hematopoiesis for several weeks in culture. In combination with geometric and dynamic approaches to reconstructing physiological bone marrow microenvironments, we believe that this approach has promise for reconstructing human bone marrow ex vivo, thereby permitting its application to a variety of basic and clinical problems.