Figure 3

Expansion and functional characterization of CD133⁺CD34⁺ cells in co-culture with primary human ECs and MSCs. (A) Flow-cytometric assessment of hematopoietic progeny (CD45⁺) cells after expansion in co-culture with primary human ECs (EC5 = HUVEC 5 and EC9 = ECFC 9) and MSCs (MSC2 = BM MNC 2 and MSC4 = BM Fat 4 as described in Radtke et al. 2016¹⁵). Fold-expansion of (B) phenotypically CD133⁺CD34⁺ HSPCs revealing (n = 5) (C) LTC-ICs (n = 4 for EC2 + MSC2 and EC5 + MSC4, all other n = 5), (D) NK-ICs (n = 3 for EC9 + MSC2, all other n = 5) and (E) CFC potentials (n = 5). (F) CFC potential of CD133^lowCD34⁺ cells derived from corresponding co-cultures. Primitive hematopoietic cells revealing CFC potentials were subdivided regarding their arising colony types (BFU-E, CFU-M, CFU-G and CFU-GM and CFU-MIX) (x-axis: independent experiments with different donor-derived HUVECs or ECFCs, respectively; statistics: mean ± SEM; *p-value < 0.05, tested against Sus; ^#p-value < 0.05, tested against AFT024).