Chapter 17 - Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells

Abstract

The frequency and quality of hematopoietic stem cells in cord blood at the birth of a baby have endowed cord blood with the capacity to cure a large variety of malignant and genetic disorders. This chapter focuses on the functional characteristics of cord blood stem and progenitor cells for proliferation, self-renewal, and homing, three important functions for clinical transplantation. Cord blood transplantation works in both children and adults. Being able to ex vivo expand, and enhancing the homing efficiency, of stem cells from cord blood would increase the usefulness and applicability of cord blood for transplantation. Current information on these functional activities of cord blood stem and progenitor cells helps to explain successes with cord blood transplantation. Although attempts at ex vivo expansion of stem cells for clinical cord blood transplantation have been disappointing thus far, new information regarding factors and intracellular signaling molecules involved in the regulation of hematopoietic stem cell activity, the role of the microenvironmental niche in this regulation and in the growth of embryonic stem cells and the newly identified field of inducible pluripotent stem cells, as well as advancements in understanding and manipulating the homing capacities of stem cells, offer hope that stem cell transplantation in general and cord blood stem cell transplantation in particular can be enhanced.