Metabolic profiling of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells during proliferation and differentiation into red blood cells

An understanding of the metabolic profile of cell proliferation and differentiation should support the optimization of culture conditions for hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) proliferation, differentiation, and maturation into red blood cells. We have evaluated the key metabolic parameters during each phase of HSPC culture for red blood cell production in serum-supplemented (SS) and serum-free (SF) conditions. A simultaneous decrease in growth rate, total protein content, cell size, and the percentage of cells in the S/G2 phase of cell cycle, as well as an increase in the percentage of cells with a CD71(-)/GpA(+) surface marker profile, indicates HSPC differentiation into red blood cells. Compared with proliferating HSPCs, differentiating HSPCs showed significantly lower glucose and glutamine consumption rates, lactate and ammonia production rates, and amino acid consumption and production rates in both SS and SF conditions. Furthermore, extracellular acidification was associated with late proliferation phase, suggesting a reduced cellular metabolic rate during the transition from proliferation to differentiation. Under both SS and SF conditions, cells demonstrated a high metabolic rate with a mixed metabolism of both glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in early and late proliferation, an increased dependence on OXPHOS activity during differentiation, and a shift to glycolytic metabolism only during maturation phase. These changes indicate that cell metabolism may have an important impact on the ability of HSPCs to proliferate and differentiate into red blood cells.