Colony-forming cell assay for human hematopoietic progenitor cells harvested by a novel continuous-flow cell separation method.

In order to prove the functional potentiality of cells separated according to their densities by a novel continuous-flow cell separation method, the colony-forming cell (CFC) assay was performed on the harvested cells from peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood. The number of colony-forming unit-granulocyte, erythroid, macrophage, megakaryocyte (CFU-GEMM), which are considered to be stem cells, was approximately 3% of colonies developed from the peripheral blood and approximately 4% of colonies from the umbilical cord blood. It appears that this new method could allow us for harvesting of hematopoietic progenitor cells without losing their native ability to proliferate.