Ex vivo expansion of human cord blood hematopoietic stem cells using small-molecule compounds.

Recent studies of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) have led to the development of new ways to detect and purify HSPCs and have also revealed several intrinsic and extrinsic factors that control the molecular signals fundamental to self-renewal and differentiation of HSPCs. These findings have provided new approaches for expanding HSPCs ex vivo utilizing protein factors and small-molecule compounds (SMCs) and have also demonstrated promising outcomes in clinical trials. Although further technical innovation is still needed, elucidation of the whole picture of signaling pathways critical to HSPCs and manipulation of such pathways by SMCs could establish efficient and robust methods for ex vivo expansion of HSPCs.