In Vitro Generation of Dendritic Cells from Cord Blood CD34+Hematopoietic Progenitors Cells

This review deals with the principles and methods used to generate dendritic cells (DCs) from cord blood CD34⁺ hematopoietic progenitors cells (HPC). Inasmuch as this culture system does not raise any particular technical difficulty, we will first thoroughly expose the principal characteristics of this method and discuss its advantages and limitations as compared with the other methods currently used to differentiate DCs in vitro, with particular emphasis on monocyte-derived DCs (MDDCs). We will then discuss the influence of CD34⁺ HPC origin (cord blood, bone marrow, thymus) and phenotype (pluripotent primitive HPC vs lymphoid- or myeloid-committed HPCs) on DC differentiation pathways. We will finally present the protocol used in our laboratory to generate DCs from cord blood CD34+HPCs, as adapted from the original method developed by Caux et al. (1) and optimized for the analysis of DC developmental pathways (2-7) . Serum-free culture conditions required for the generation of DCs for therapeutical use will not be discussed here.