Ex vivo expansion of human cord blood hematopoietic progenitor cells using glutaraldehyde-fixed human bone marrow stromal cells.

Human stromal cells were immortalized and fixed with glutaraldehyde to support an ex vivo expansion of human cord blood hematopoietic progenitor cells. In addition, this enabled glutaraldehyde-fixed stromal cells to be stored at 4 degrees C. Although freeze-dried glutaraldehyde-fixed stromal cells did not increase the number of the progenitor cells, the percent decrease in the number of CD34(+) cells in the presence of freeze-dried glutaraldehyde-fixed stromal cells was less than that in the absence of the stromal cells. Thus, glutaraldehyde-fixed stromal cells can serve as a stabilizing device for hematopoietic cell expansion.