Hematopoietic stem cells expanded by fibroblast growth factor-1 are excellent targets for retrovirus-mediated gene delivery

Objective For the study of the function of genes of interest in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and for successful gene therapy, it is fundamental to develop a method of efficient gene transfer into HSCs. In mice experiments, efforts have been made to raise the transduction efficiency by modifying the vectors, administrating 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) to donor mice, selecting cytokine cocktails to better sustain the long-term repopulating potential of the stem cells, and so on. The objective of this study is to examine whether the use of fibroblast growth factor-1 (FGF-1)-expanded bone marrow cells provide an improved source for retroviral gene delivery to HSCs. Materials and Methods Unfractionated bone marrow cells from one mouse were cultured in serum-free medium containing FGF-1. Both floating and attached cells were transferred to retronectin precoated dishes and infected with virus supernatant from MP34 cells stably transduced with pMY/GFP retrovirus. After 3-day infection, the green fluorescence protein–positive fraction was sorted and the cells were transplanted to lethally irradiated mice. Results The experiments illustrated that the number of bone marrow–derived competitive repopulation units (CRUs) was increased from 600 to 9300 per mouse after a 3-week culture period with FGF-1. Following retroviral transduction of the expanded cells, the absolute number of sorted retrovirus-transduced CRUs was 4200. Using these retrovirus-transduced cells in noncompetitive reconstitution assay, we achieved radiation protection and long-term bone marrow reconstitution in 100% of the recipients with average myeloid and lymphoid chimerisms of 70% and 50%, respectively, even if we transplanted 150 recipients with cells derived from a single donor mouse. Conclusion In conclusion, FGF-1-expanded bone marrow cells constitute an excellent source of stem cells that could be used in a range of gene delivery protocols.