Large-Scale Liquid Culture Production of Erythroid Cells from Human Embryonic Stem Cells.

Early human erythropoiesis is difficult to study because the material is hard to access experimentally. Hence, relatively little is known about the gene expression profiles or the mechanism of globin gene expression in these early cells. We report here a system to produce large quantities in liquid culture of virtually pure erythroid cells starting from H1 human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). The system is adapted from methods to produce enucleated red blood cells from cord blood and consist of five steps. During the first step, hESCs are differentiated by co-culture on immortalized human fetal hepatocytes (FH-B-hTERT) for two weeks to produce hematopoietic cells. CD34 positive cells are then magnetically sorted and placed in step 2 for seven days in serum free medium in the presence of SCF, Epo, hydro-cortisone, flt-3 ligand, BMP-4 and IL3. In step 3, the cells are incubated for seven days in the same medium and cytokine cocktail but with IGF-1 and without flt-3-ligand. In step 4, the cells are incubated with Epo for 3 days, and in step 5 the cells are incubated without cytokine on a feeder layer of MS-5 cells. In a typical experiment, 2 millions hESCs (two 10cm² wells) yield 50,000 sorted CD34 positive cells. Culture of these cells for about three weeks yields about 5 millions erythroid cells. This corresponds to a 5 to 10,000-fold amplification of the sorted hematopoietic cells since we estimate that only a few percent of the cells recovered with the CD34 magnetic beads are hematopoietic. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that at the beginning of the second step the CD34+ cells are CD45⁻, CD71^low and CD235a⁻. After 7 days in liquid culture CD34 expression is less than 10%, CD45 and CD71 expressions are more than 95% and CD235a is less than 20%. Eight days later the cells are 95% CD34⁻ CD45⁻ CD71^high and CD235a⁺. Finally at the end of the culture the cells become CD34⁻, CD45⁻, CD71⁻ and CD235a⁺. Morphological analysis by Wright-Giemsa staining revealed that the differentiation process in the liquid culture is relatively synchronous and that at the end of the culture the majority of the cells are orthochromatic erythroblasts. In contrast to cord blood derived cells placed in similar differentiation conditions, very few enucleated red blood cells could be obtained from hESCs. Hemoglobin can first be detected spectrophotometrically after day 10 of liquid culture and reach a concentration of 20 pmol/10⁶ cells at the end of the culture. Globin chain analysis by PCR and HPLC reveals that ξ, α, ε, and γ globin chains are synthesized by these cells but not β-globin could be detected. A detailed analysis of globin expression in early human erythroid cells will be presented in an accompanying abstract. This experimental system will be useful to study early erythropoiesis, to test gene therapy vectors, and to create genetically modified red blood cells.