Method for purifying pluri-differentiated mesenchymal progenitor cells

Patent Number: 7,303,769

This patent covers the extraction/purification of a type of mesenchymal stem cell. Specifically the invention claims removing macrophages from a Dexter culture, fractionating cells, and collecting from the factionated cells a stem cell population.

The fractionation procedure may be performed by percoll gradient (a type of density gradient).

The stem cells that are purified are called "pluri-differentiated" mesenchymal progenitor cells and express markers of various cell lineages. According to this description the cells purified are not an actual stem cell population but some type of heterogenous mixture of cells that have the ability to differentiate into various tissues.

View this patent on the USPTO website.