Abstract
BACKGROUND: Deceased organ donors represent an untapped source of therapeutic bone marrow (BM) that can be recovered in 3-5 times the volume of that obtained from living donors, tested for quality, cryopreserved, and banked indefinitely for future on-demand use. A challenge for a future BM banking system will be to manage the prolonged ischemia times that are inevitable when bones procured at geographically-dispersed locations are shipped to distant facilities for processing. Our objectives were to: (a) quantify, under realistic field conditions, the relationship between ischemia time and the quality of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) derived from deceased-donor BM; (b) identify ischemia-time boundaries beyond which HSPC quality is adversely affected; (c) investigate whole-body cooling as a strategy for preserving cell quality; and (d) investigate processing experience as a variable affecting quality. METHODS: Seventy-five bones from 62 donors were analyzed for CD34+ viability following their exposure to various periods of warm-ischemia time (WIT), cold-ischemia time (CIT), and body-cooling time (BCT). Regression models were developed to quantify the independent associations of WIT, CIT, and BCT, with the viability and function of recovered HSPCs. RESULTS: Results demonstrate that under "real-world" scenarios: (a) combinations of warm- and cold-ischemia times favorable to the recovery of high-quality HSPCs are achievable (e.g., CD34+ cell viabilities in the range of 80-90% were commonly observed); (b) body cooling prior to bone recovery is detrimental to cell viability (e.g., CD34+ viability < 73% with, vs. > 89% without body cooling); (c) vertebral bodies (VBs) are a superior source of HSPCs compared to ilia (IL) (e.g., %CD34+ viability > 80% when VBs were the source, vs. < 74% when IL were the source); and (d) processing experience is a critical variable affecting quality. CONCLUSIONS: Our models can be used by an emerging BM banking system to formulate ischemia-time tolerance limits and data-driven HSPC quality-acceptance standards.