Harvesting and enrichment of hematopoietic progenitor cells mobilized into the peripheral blood of normal donors by granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) or G-CSF: potential role in allogeneic marrow transplantation

To explore the use of stem/progenitor cells from peripheral blood (PB) for allogeneic transplantation, we have studied the mobilization of progenitor cells in normal donors by growth factors. Normal subjects were administered either granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) at 10 micrograms/kg/d, or G-CSF at 10 micrograms/kg/d, or a combination of G- and GM-CSF at 5 micrograms/kg/d each, administered subcutaneously for 4 days, followed by leukapheresis on day 5. Mononuclear cells expressing CD34 (CD34+ cells) were selectively enriched by affinity labeling using Dynal paramagnetic microspheres (Baxter Isolex; Baxter Healthcare Corp, Santa Ana, CA). The baseline CD34+ cells in peripheral blood before mobilization was 0.07% +/- 0.05% (1.6 +/- 0.7/microL; n = 18). On the fifth day after stimulation (24 hours after the fourth dose), the CD34+ cells were 0.99% +/- 0.40% (61 +/- 14/microL) for the 8 subjects treated with G-CSF, 0.25% +/- 0.25% (3 +/- 3/microL, both P < .01 v G-CSF) for the 5 subjects administered GM-CSF, and for the 5 subjects treated with G- and GM-CSF, 0.65% +/- 0.28% (41 +/- 18/microL, P < .5 v GM-CSF). Parallel to this increase in CD34+ cells, clonogenic assays showed a corresponding increase in CFU- GM and BFU-E. The total number of CD34+ cells collected from the G-CSF group during a 3-hour apheresis was 119 +/- 65 x 10(6) and was not significantly different from that collected from the group treated with G- and GM-CSF (101 +/- 35 x 10(6) cells), but both were greater than that from the group treated with GM-CSF (12.6 +/- 6.1 x 10(6); P < .01 for both comparisons). Analysis of the CD34+ subsets showed that a significantly higher percentage of cells with the CD34+/CD38- phenotype is found after mobilization with G- and GM-CSF. In the G-CSF group, immunomagnetic selection of CD34+ cells permitted the enrichment of the CD34+ cells in the apheresis product to 81% +/- 11%, with a 48% +/- 12% yield and to a purity of 77% +/- 21% with a 51% +/- 15% recovery in the G- and GM-CSF group. T cells were depleted from a mean of 4.5 +/- 2.0 x 10(9) to 4.3 +/- 5.2 x 10(6) after selection, representing 99.9% depletion. We conclude that it is feasible to collect sufficient numbers of PB progenitor cells from normal donors with one to two leukapheresis procedures for allogeneic transplantation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)