Prostaglandin E 2 enhances engraftment of human cord blood stem cells and shows long-term safety in preclinical non-human primate transplant models

HSCs alone possess the ability to both self-renew and differentiate into all mature blood lineages, thereby maintaining immune function, tissue perfusion and hematopoietic homeostasis throughout the lifetime of the organism. HSCs are therapeutically valuable for transplantation in the treatment of hematologic malignances. They are a rare population in the bone marrow (BM), and methods for direct isolation and expansion of a pure population of functional human HSCs remain elusive. The development of therapeutic options to manipulate and maintain human HSCs is of major clinical interest, however, to date, no such therapy has proven effective in large-scale clinical trails.