Morphological analysis of the bone marrow biopsies derived from heparinized cadaveric organ donors before and after disconnecting from the respirator.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) from unrelated HLA-matched heparinized cadaveric organ donors (HCOD) are an under-appreciated potential source of stem cells, which could be employed in hematopoietic transplants and/or gene therapy. In addition, these cells could also be transplanted along with solid organs in order to increase microchimerism and graft tolerance after transplantation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the morphological changes seen in the bone marrow biopsies derived from HCODs before and after disconnecting the donor from the respirator. The morphological time-kinetic analysis of the bone marrow biopsies along with functional clonogeneic studies performed on isolated cells collectively reveals that hematopoietic cells from HCOD for transplantological purposes should be harvested within 2 h after disconnecting the respirator. In addition, we noticed that an early sign of developing bone marrow hypoxia/necrosis is a decrease in the number of megakaryocytes visible on bone marrow biopsies.