ES to HSC

Madison, Wisconsin -

Amongst the various ES technologies that WARF has title to, one particularly interesting one is generation of hematopoietic stem cells from embryonic stem cells. Although others have demonstrated that this is feasible using human embryonic stem cells, the process appears to be more difficult in embryonic stem cells derived from other primates.

In a recent paper (Rajesh et al. Differential requirements for hematopoietic commitment between human and rhesus embryonic stem cells.Stem Cells. 2007 25(2):490-9)rhesus macaque ES cells were shown to be capable of differentiation into hematopoietic stem cells under embryoid body culture conditions. Interestingly, it appears that the ES cells derived from rhesus monkeys, but not humans, get stuck in the hemangioblast stage of differentiation. Although it is possible under the culture conditions presented to generate hematopoietic stem cells, the numbers and efficiency is much less from the rhesus than the human.