Adoptive transfer of tumor-specific effector T cells induces regression of advanced tumors and induces a long term memory response; however, the origin of this response has not been clearly defined. In this study Thy1.2+ mice bearing advanced MCA-205 tumors were treated with sublethal total body irradiation, followed by adoptive transfer of congenic Thy1.1+ T cells that had been sensitized to t...

Human bone-marrow mesenchymal stem cells have an important role in the repair of musculoskeletal tissues by migrating from the bone marrow into the injured site and undergoing differentiation. We investigated the use of autologous human serum as a substitute for fetal bovine serum in the ex vivo expansion medium to avoid the transmission of dangerous transfectants during clinical reconstruction...

CD4+CD25+ immunoregulatory T cells (Tregs) can be administered to inhibit graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) while preserving graft-vs-leukemia activity after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in mice. Preclinical studies suggest that it is necessary to infuse as many Tregs as conventional donor T cells to achieve a clinical effect on GVHD. Thus, it would be necessary to expand Tregs ex vivo bef...

We previously reported that CD31(bright) cells, which were sorted from cultured AC133(+) cells of adult peripheral blood cells, differentiated more efficiently into endothelial cells than CD31(+) cells or CD31(-) cells, suggesting that CD31(bright) cells may be endothelial precursor cells. In this study, we found that CD31(bright) cells have a strong ability to release cytokines. The mixture of...

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) has been used successfully as a source of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for allogeneic transplantation in children and adults in the treatment of hematologic diseases. However, compared with marrow or mobilized peripheral blood stem cell grafts from adult donors, significant delays in the rates and kinetics of neutrophil and platelet engraftment are noted after UCB ...

Culture-expanded human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are increasingly used in clinics, yet full characterization of the genomic compositions of these cells is lacking. We present a whole-genome investigation on the genetic dynamics of cultured MSCs under ex vivo establishment (passage 1 [p1]) and serial expansion (p8 and p13). We detected no significant changes in copy-number alterations (CNAs)...

Despite recent advances in cardiovascular medicine, ischemic heart disease remains the major cause of death in the United States and abroad. Cell-based therapy for degenerative diseases like myocardial ischemia using stem cells is currently under serious investigation. Various types of stem cells are being considered to be candidates for cell transplantation in cell-based therapy. Hematopoietic...

Effective T-cell therapy against cancer is dependent on the formation of long-lived, stem cell-like T cells with the ability to self-renew and differentiate into potent effector cells. Here, we investigated the in vivo existence of stem cell-like antigen-specific T cells in allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) patients and their ex vivo generation for additive treatment posttransplan...

Recent reports have indicated that there is poor engraftment from hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) that have traversed cell cycle ex vivo. However, inducing cells to cycle in culture is critical to the fields of ex vivo stem cell expansion and retroviral-mediated gene therapy. Through the use of a xenograft model, the current data shows that human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells can trave...