Quantitative activation suppression assay to evaluate human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cell potency.

Background Aims: With the increasing use of cell therapies involving immune modulatory cells, there is a need for a simple standardized method to evaluate and compare the suppressive potency of different cell products. We used the Karpas 299 (K299) cell line as the reference suppressor cell to develop a standardized suppression assay to quantify the immune-modulatory capacity of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells (BM-MSCs).

Methods: Healthy donor CD4 T cells were co-cultured with the K299 cell line or with third-party BM-MSCs.