[Analysis of hemopoietic progenitor cells in bone marrow and peripheral blood samples which have undergone different periods of cryopreservation].
Bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) samples from patients undergoing autologous transplant were tested to evaluate the effects of cryopreservation. Cell viability was assessed as well as the proliferative capability of CFU-GM and BFU-E (myeloid and erythroid progenitors respectively). Moreover, long term culture (LTC) of stromal cells was used to test their functionality. A total of 23 samples were studied: 5 from AML patients, 7 MM, 6 NHL, 3 ALL and 2 HL. Nine patients received autologous bone marrow transplant (ABMT) and the remaining 14 PBSC. The cells were frozen during 24 to 33 days before infusion and 16 to 40 months before culture. Forty percent of AML and MM samples gave rise to colonies in vitro while the other hematology diseases tested showed colony growth in almost 100% of the cases. Samples from patients with lymphoid diseases exhibited a good correlation between the percentage of CD34+ cells and the number of colonies developed in culture. Nevertheless, there was no correlation when ALL and MM were tested suggesting that the underlying disease may have affected the growth in culture. The stromal layer was fully developed on BM samples, but on PBSC samples it only generated macrophages and fibroblasts. Our results suggest that the efficacy of cryopreservation of hematopoietic cells can be measured by means of CFU-GM and BFU-E culture and that the period the samples remained frozen did not affect the growth capability of the cells.