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. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.