Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A population of peripheral blood-derived cells that mature into megakaryocytes within four to eight days of liquid culture is described. This population was enriched from normal leukapheresis units by counterflow centrifugal elutriation... more
A population of peripheral blood-derived cells that mature into megakaryocytes within four to eight days of liquid culture is described. This population was enriched from normal leukapheresis units by counterflow centrifugal elutriation and CD34 selection. The cells were incubated in suspension with known megakaryocyte growth or maturation factors. Megakaryocytes were identified within the cultures with antibodies to platelet-glycoproteins (Ib and IIb) and cytologically classified as stage I-IV cells. Plasma from aplastic dogs (APK9) or human recombinant interleukin 3 (IL-3) were the only culture additives which reproducibly resulted in megakaryocyte development. The activity present in APK9 was relatively megakaryocyte-specific while IL-3 was not. The phenotype of the short-term megakaryocyte progenitor cell population was determined by FACS and found to be CD34bright but not CD34dull or CD34-. The population was further characterized as CD34+/CD38+ and CD34+/HLA-DR+. Both CD34+/CD...