Mobilized Leukopaks From Human Peripheral Blood

What Is a Mobilized Leukopak?

Like a fresh leukopak, a mobilized leukopak is an enriched apheresis product of high leukocyte concentration specifically extracted through leukapheresis—a circular collection method that returns red blood cells and plasma to donors while collecting white blood cells. 

Mobilized leukopaks are obtained through a mobilized apheresis donation—performing apheresis on healthy and carefully selected donors who have been treated with mobilization factors intended to boost the release of progenitor cells from the bone marrow. Because of this increased drug-induced release in tandem with the apheresis donation, mobilized leukopaks have a higher concentration of stem cells and are helpful in regenerative medicine, transplant therapy, and cell therapy applications. 

CD34+ Hematopoietic Stem and Progenitor Cells (HSPCs)

CD is an abbreviation for a cluster of differentiation, which is a distinct cluster of molecules allowing for the identification of cell types based on their surface membrane antigens.

CD34  is a valuable and informative glycoprotein found on or embedded in early stem, progenitor, and endothelial cells. Utilized as a differentiation indicator, CD34 is expressed on almost all hematopoietic cells on the surface membranes or internally. It is also a cell adhesion factor that can affix stem cells to the bone marrow matrix or other cell types.

Applications of Mobilized White Blood Cells

HSPCs are used in the treatment of malignancies of the blood and some non-malignant conditions to replace and reconstruct the patient’s hematopoietic system with bone marrow or blood transplants. Mobilized leukopaks are a significant source of HSPCs that can be used downstream in place of bone marrow or blood-derived HSPCs for the treatment of these diseases. A focus of current stem cell research involves the development of methods for pushing HSPCs to develop into specific cell types for the treatment of a wider range of diseases, including a variety of solid tumors.  

Performing Mobilized Apheresis

Mobilized apheresis begins with a selective process for the best-suited donors. Mobilized apheresis donors are healthy and undergo a drug regimen of growth factors—mobilization factors—that stimulate the release of HSPCs into the bloodstream several days before collection. These drugs are FDA approved and include Plerixafor and G-CSF; both are shown to activate a release of CD34+ cells from the bone marrow of the donor for collection into a mobilized leukopak via leukapheresis. 

By mobilizing stem cells into the bloodstream for collection, the resulting mobilized leukopak will be rich in concentrations of CD34+ cells—all from a single donor and ready to be applied in various research settings. 

Mobilized Leukopak Customization

Mobilized leukopaks can be customized through donor selection and mobilizing agents, some having G-CSF or Plerixafor, and others utilizing both. Due to Good Manufacturing Practice regulations – or GMP compliance – on leukopaks, donors are held to strict quality control and can be selected by various characteristics. Customizable by age, weight, ethnicity, lifestyle choices, and medical history, mobilized leukopaks to ensure a controlled and reliable product for any focused study needs.

Benefits of Mobilized Cell Populations

There are many instances where a mobilized leukopak is preferable to a standard one. In most cell therapy or regenerative medicine applications, the ability to utilize a mobilized leukopak over multiple experiments decreases same-cell variability, which can skew experiment controls. 

Mobilized leukopaks also eliminate donor-to-donor deviations, making them a more robust stem cell source than other extraction methods. This scalability allows for consistent clinical trials with properly maintained controls.

Isolating Cells From Mobilized Leukopaks for Research and Treatment

Mobilized leukopaks contain a much higher initial concentration of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and HSPCs than whole blood extractions, making them highly advantageous for research and treatment applications. Obtaining desired cells for a study is typically the initial step in cell therapy or immunology studies and can often be the most critical portion of the protocol. 

By performing blood separation techniques on mobilized leukopaks, researchers can be guaranteed a high and robust yield of their target cells. This allows for quick and confident progression into the next portions of treatment or experimental protocol. 

Akadeum’s Innovative Microbubble Technology

With Akadeum’s state-of-the-art microbubble technology, leukopak processing has never been easier. Once the microbubbles are mixed into the mobilized leukopak solution, they will bind to the unwanted cells, their buoyancy will float them to the top of the solution to be easily removed – the most gentle cell isolation ever!  

This process leaves users with concentrated and high-quality cells ready for the next step of the cell therapy workflow. Read through our separation protocol and explore how simple cell enrichment from mobilized leukopaks can be. 

Why waste any more valuable time on unreliable extraction techniques when cell separation is now so accessible and uncomplicated with microbubble technology? Find out more about how Akadeum is revolutionizing cell separation with microbubble technology and giving time back to research and treatment labs.