Hematological diseases involve blood abnormalities as a whole or of its components. Some well-known, among others, are multiple myeloma and lymphoma. An increase in such diseases has been reported on a global scale with 15,810 new diagnoses, between 2004 and 2011. Current treatments include bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapies and blood transfusions. Recently, hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) transplantation emerged as an alternative where cells are obtained from sources other than bone marrow (e.g., mobilized peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood (UCB)), a highly invasive and painful procedure. These cells are characterized for having abilities of self-renewal and differentiation. In this regard, through the process of hematopoiesis, different cell lineages are produced into mature blood cell types (erythrocytes, granulocytes, monocytes, lymphocytes and blood platelets). Nowadays, it is known that HSPC isolated from UCB exhibit a more primitive character than their counterparts, and consequently, a greater proliferative capacity. However, in comparison with other HSPC sources, UCB have approximately ten times less nucleated cells and therefore, less minimum cell dosage available per unit. Hence, expanding HPSC derived from UCB could assure enough cells to achieve better transplantation outcomes. This study is therefore dedicated to test a bioink made from decellularized porcine placenta as a biomimicking platform of HPSC niche resulting in an increase of proliferation rate and cellular numbers. After cells were embedded in the hydrogel, a bioprinter was employed to create a 3D construct. To facilitate the process, as cells proliferated, the construct was exposed to early acting cytokines and maintained under hypoxic environmental culture conditions (mimicking bone marrow). We are currently measuring rates of expansion and differentiation to contrast the results against conventional strategies. We expect that the proposed approach will improve UCB transplantation by increasing cellular numbers that maintains stem ability to engraft and repopulate patient’s bone marrow.

Decellularized porcine placenta bioink as a microenvironment for increasing hematopoietic cells proliferation in transplants

ACS Fall 2021

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