Cryopreservation of Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells for Therapeutic Use

Abstract

To date, more than 25,000 hematopoietic transplants have been carried out across Europe for hematological disorders, the majority being for hematological malignancies. At least 70% of these are autologous transplants, the remaining 30% being allogeneic, which are sourced from related (70% of the allogeneic) or unrelated donors. Peripheral blood mobilized with granulocyte colony stimulating factor is the major source of stem cells for transplantation, being used in approx 95% of autologous transplants and in approx 65% of allogeneic transplants. Other cell sources used for transplantation are bone marrow and umbilical cord blood. One crucial advance in the treatment of these disorders has been the development of the ability to cryopreserve hematopoietic stem cells for future transplantation. For bone marrow and mobilized peripheral blood, the majority of cryopreserved harvests come from autologous collections that are stored prior to a planned infusion following further treatment of the patient or at the time of a subsequent relapse. Other autologous harvests are stored as backup or "rainy day" harvests, the former specifically being intended to rescue patients who develop graft failure following an allogeneic transplant or who may require this transplant at a later date. Allogeneic bone marrow and mobilized peripheral blood are less often cryopreserved than autologous harvests. This is in contrast to umbilical cord blood that may be banked for directed or sibling (related) hematopoietic stem cell transplants, for allogeneic unrelated donations, and for autologous donations. Allogeneic unrelated donations are of particular use for providing a source of hematopoietic stem cells for ethnic minorities, patients with rare human leukocyte antigen types, or where the patient urgently requires a transplant and cannot wait for the weeks to months required to prepare a bone marrow donor. There are currently more than 200,000 banked umbilical cord blood units registered with the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide registry. In this chapter, we describe several protocols that we have used to cryopreserve these different sources of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells, keeping in mind that the protocols may vary among transplant processing centers.

Effects of obstetric factors and storage temperatures on the yield of endothelial colony forming cells from umbilical cord blood

“…Since, in accordance with FACT-Netcord standards, we store fresh CBB UCB units for transplantation from the NHS Cord Blood Bank at 22 ± 2°C after collection and do so for up to 24 h before processing by volume reduction [18, 21], we examined the effects of transient storage of UCB on ECFC yield. R&D UCB units were collected from 25 subjects at random and stored at either 4 ± 2°C or 22 ± 2°C in temperature mapped fridges/incubators for 24 h, then the ‘Enumeration of ECFC’ procedure was followed as detailed in the “Materials and methods”.…”

“…The UCB for this purpose was collected in 2004–2005 by methods similar to above and described in detail elsewhere [4]. UCB processing was carried out within 24 h of UCB collection and differs from the R&D procedure above in that whole UCB was volume reduced to 21 ml and depleted of plasma and erythrocytes using the Biosafe Sepax system [3, 18]. The UCB buffy coat was then cryopreserved using DMSO and stored in a BioArchive.…”

Cryopreserved Dental Pulp Tissues of Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth Is a Feasible Stem Cell Resource for Regenerative Medicine

“…Cryopreservation of stem cells has provided several utilities such as long-term storage, adjusting a therapeutic cell dose, reducing contamination for safety and quality in the clinical applications [34], [46]. This approach has been used widely and successfully in bone marrow transplantation [47] and HSC transplantation [48]. Therefore, cryopreserved store and banking of MSC resources would be a variable, indispensable and practical approach for stem cell-based therapy.…”

Cryopreservation of Hematopoietic and Non-Hematopoietic Stem Cells – A Review for the Clinician

“…Only few high quality studies are available to guide the clinician and laboratorian in the choice of the optimal technique. The controlled rate freezing(CRF) procedure still remains the defined standard in many countries (S. M. Watt, Austin, & S. Armitage, 2007). The principal rationale for CRF as choice is the limited cell damage during the freezing process (Donaldson et al, 1996;Douay, 1985;Yang et al, 2001), particularly at the eutectic transition point.…”

“…The principal time trajectory during controlled rate freezing involves initially slow freezing, at a rate of -1° to -2° Celsius per minute, then very rapidly around the eutectic point, to be then further cooled at a steady, preset rate to a target temperature to be finally placed into nitrogen for durable storage. Several modifications of this technique have been described in the literature (Berz, McCormack, Winer, Colvin, & Peter J Quesenberry, 2007;Donaldson et al, 1996;Gorin, 1986;Perez-Oteyza et al, 1998;Valeri & Pivacek, 1996;S. M. Watt, Austin, & S. Armitage, 2007).…”