The year 2020 will be forever remembered for the COVID-19 pandemic that swept around the globe and impacted every aspect of our personal and professional lives.It will also be a year where cord blood and tissue have shone within the scientific and clinical arena, providing a vital stem cell donor source when the availability of adult bone marrow and mobilized blood as a donor source was compromised, providing cells of potential therapeutic benefit for the treatment of patients with severe COVID-19.The abstracts submitted to this year's virtual Cord Blood Connect international congress stretch beyond the pandemic.Technologically innovative investigations are presented, ranging from preclinical studies to clinical trials, regenerative therapies using cord blood and perinatal tissues, and cord blood transplantation.The Abstract Review Committee chose four abstracts for the Best Abstract Awards.Two of them are exciting preclinical studies demonstrating a functional role for cells derived from both cord tissue and cord blood for the treatment of neurological conditions.A study presented by Hyunjung Min describes how human umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stromal cells interact with macrophages to suppress T cells and thereby enhance remyelination of the spinal cord in a murine preclinical model of demyelinating disease.Arjun Saha reports on the human umbilical cord bloodderived macrophage-like cell therapy product, DUOC-01, to treat demyelinating conditions of the central nervous system.DUOC-01 was formulated in hydrocortisone, in order to mimic the likely clinical practice, and tested in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, an animal model used to study multiple sclerosis (MS).Results suggest that the DUOC-01 cellular therapy product may be of benefit in treating MS and other neurological conditions with demyelination.
The network of public cord blood banks (CBBs) in Australia, known as AusCord, comprises CBBs located in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. A novel comprehensive analysis has been performed to determine whether the cryopreserved, searchable cord blood unit (CBU) inventory of approximately 36 000 units share similar tissue types or haplotypes.Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) data was analysed using Microsoft Excel following standardisation of typing data.The analysis has found that the majority of stored, searched and released CBU exhibit a tissue type that is unique within and between the CBBs. Therefore, each collection performed by the CBBs is likely to comprise a tissue type that is not already stored among the total AusCord inventory. HLA alleles (HLA-A*34, HLA-B*56, HLA-DRB1*08:03), which are uncommon in European populations, were associated with Pacific Islander and/or Indigenous Australian populations and confirmed to be more frequent among donors who, when screened, self-identified as these ethnicities.These data indicate that (i) continued addition of CBU to existing inventories is likely to further increase the HLA diversity and (ii) screening donors for ethnicity or strategically locating collection sites where ethnic minorities reside can successfully result in collection of rare HLA associated with ethnic minority groups for whom finding donors might otherwise be more difficult.
+ UCB cells. Cumulative cell number following trans- duction with control vector (open squares) or hTERT-retro- virus (closed squares) and maintenance in FL+IL3. Results are mean ± sem of between 6 and 12 samples **p < 0.005, *p <0.01. Time post-transduction (weeks)
Like formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues, archived bone marrow aspirate slides are an abundant and untapped resource of biospecimens that could enable retrospective molecular studies of disease. Historically, RNA obtained from slides is limited in utility because of their low quality and highly fragmented nature. MicroRNAs are small (≈22 nt) non-coding RNA that regulate gene expression, and are speculated to preserve well in FFPE tissue. Here we investigate the use of archived bone marrow aspirate slides for miRNA expression analysis in paediatric leukaemia. After determining the optimal method of miRNA extraction, we used TaqMan qRT-PCR to identify reference miRNA for normalisation of other miRNA species. We found hsa-miR-16 and hsa-miR-26b to be the most stably expressed between lymphoblastoid cell lines, primary bone marrow aspirates and archived samples. We found the average fold change in expression of hsa-miR-26b and two miRNA reportedly dysregulated in leukaemia (hsa-miR-128a, hsa-miR-223) was <0.5 between matching archived slide and bone marrow aspirates. Differential expression of hsa-miR-128a and hsa-miR-223 was observed between leukaemic and non-leukaemic bone marrow from archived slides or flash frozen bone marrow. The demonstration that archived bone marrow aspirate slides can be utilized for miRNA expression studies offers tremendous potential for future investigations into the role miRNA play in the development and long term outcome of hematologic, as well as non-hematologic, diseases.
Overexpression of telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) can immortalize some primary human mesenchymal cells. We investigated whether retrovirally-mediated expression of hTERT in CD34+ umbilical cord blood (UCB) cells can extend the replicative lifespan of human hematopoietic progenitor cells. Overexpression of hTERT did not immortalize these cells but did lead to enhanced survival of mature hematopoietic cells.
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