Identification of Single Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells Capable of Long-Term Multilineage Engraftment and Self-Renewal.

Abstract 816

A fundamental tenet that has guided our insight into the biology of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) over the past 50 years is the principle that an HSC can only be assayed by functional repopulation of an irradiated host1. In its strictest definition, only a HSC can provide long-term reconstitution of all the major lineages following single cell transplantation. However, the existing strategies for human HSC isolation lack quantitation and do not submit to this rigorous standard, thus precluding further biological analysis. Here, we report the prospective and quantitative analysis of human cord blood (CB) HSCs transplanted into female NOD/SCID/IL-2Rgcnull mice. We identify integrin a6 (CD49f) as a novel marker of cord blood (CB) HSCs and report that single Lin-CD34+CD38-CD90+CD45RA-RholoCD49fhi cells can reconstitute myeloid, B-, and T-cell lineages for 18 weeks. 5 of 29 mice transplanted with single cells gave rise to human cells indicating that approximately 20% of cells in this fraction are HSCs. This advance finally enables utilization of near-homogeneous populations of human HSCs to gain insight into their biology and to harness them for stem cell-based therapeutics.