Liquid storage of unseparated human bone marrow. Evaluation of hematopoietic progenitors by clonal assay

Abstract

Marrow from five donors was aspirated into a small volume of heparinized culture media, filtered, and stored in 10‐ml nominal plastic bags at 4, 22, and 37°C, respectively, for 7 days with and without agitation. Samples were taken at 0, 1, 2, 3, and 7 days, respectively, for determination of cell numbers, trypan blue viability, and committed colony‐forming unit‐granulocyte‐monocyte (CFU‐GM) and erythroid burst‐forming unit (BFU‐E) and colony‐forming unit (CFU‐E), as well as multipotent (CFU‐MIX), hematopoietic progenitors. Glucose and pH decreased with storage, most markedly at higher storage temperatures. Recovery of recovered cells exceeded 90 percent under all conditions at 7 days. Viability of committed and multipotent progenitors was maintained fairly well for 3 days at 4 and 22°C, but fell off rapidly after 1 day at 37°C. Recovery of progenitor cells stored 7 days was relatively poor. Best maintenance was achieved for 3 days using 4°C storage without agitation.