Successful engraftment of allogeneic CD34-enriched marrow cell transplantation from HLA-mismatched parental donors

The CD34 antigen is expressed on pluripotent stem cells and the CD34(+) cell has been shown to be capable of hematopoietic reconstitution in animal and human autologous grafts. We asked if CD34(+) cells could reconstitute hematopoiesis in human allogeneic transplantation from a HLA-mismatched donor. Three pediatric patients with advanced leukemia received allogeneic CD34-enriched marrow cell graft from HLA two (two patients) or three (one patient) loci-mismatched parental donors, CD34(+) cell selection was performed with mouse anti-CD34 antibody 9C5 and magnetic beads coated sheep anti-mouse IgG(1). 1.53 to 2.48 x 10(9) marrow cells were processed and 2.53 to 7.89 x 10(7) positively selected cells were recovered. The selected population showed 93.7 to 99.0% CD34(+) cells and total recovery of CD34(+) cells from the starting population was 54.6 to 62.3%, CD34(+) cell selection resulted in more than 99.9% depletion of CD5(+) cells from the bone marrow. The patients received 2.53 to 7.25 x 10(6) CD34-enriched cells/kg after myeloablative therapy. All patients achieved trilineage engraftment that was confirmed by various genetic markers. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was grade 0 (two patients) or grade I(one patient), and hematological recovery was successfully achieved as follows; the days to reach granulocytes over 0.5 x 10(9)/l were 11 to 13 days, reticulocytes over 2% was 18 to 28 days, platelets over 50 x 10(9)/l was 33 to 58 days. One patient is surviving without relapse of leukemia and two patients died after either mixed hematopoietic chimerism or leukemia relapse was observed. These studies suggest that CD34(+) marrow cells are capable of hematopoietic reconstitution from HLA two or three loci-mismatched donors even with the lowest dose of mature T cells.