Red blood cell senescence and neocytolysis in humans after high altitude acclimatization.

A selective lysis of relatively young erythrocytes (neocytolysis), together with a decrease of erythropoietin (EPO) production, has been described in polycythemic, high altitude acclimatized climbers, after descent to sea level, and in astronauts, soon after exposure to weightlessness (Alfrey CP, Rice L, Udden MM, Driscoll TB. Neocytolysis may represent the physiological down-regulation of red-cell mass. Lancet 349 (1997) 1389-90).

A closed system for the clinical banking of umbilical cord blood.

Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a source of hematopoietic progenitor cells and is used as an alternative to the bone marrow or peripheral blood for treatment of several onco-hematological diseases. Because of the limited number of CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells present in UCB units and of the elevated costs of cryopreservation, it is of paramount importance to select the UCB units that are clinically useful before storage and optimize banking efficiency by designing reliable procedures to process and freeze the selected units. Among the different parameters characterizing UCB, nucleated cell (NC) and CD34+ cell content provides useful criteria to select UCB units since clinical data documented that the infused cell load (both NC and CD34+ cells) plays an important role in the successful outcome of transplants.

Qualitative multiplex RT-PCR for simultaneous detection of hepatitis C virus and human immunodeficiency virus in plasma samples.

This report describes the development of a one-tube multiplex reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR assay for the simultaneous detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in plasma samples. The assay was evaluated with two panels of HCV- and HIV-1-positive samples, as well as negative plasma specimens. Extraction and amplification of HCV and HIV-1 RNA from plasma samples were performed in a single reaction, and amplified genomes were detected with specific probes.

A novel protocol that allows short-term stem cell expansion of both committed and pluripotent hematopoietic progenitor cells suitable for clinical use.

To obtain long-term engraftment and hematopoiesis in myeloablated patients, the cell population used for hematopoietic reconstitution should include a sufficient number of early pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), along with committed cells from the various lineages. For this purpose, the small subset of CD34+ cells purified from different sources must be expanded ex vivo. Since cytokines may induce both proliferation and differentiation, expansion would provide a cell population comprising committed as well as uncommitted cells.