Technique of preparation of hemopoietic cells of human fetal liver for transplantation.

The preparation of single cell suspension from human fetal liver is described. The technique is based on pressing the liver through wire mesh followed by repeated aspiration into a syringe through needles of decreasing internal diameter. Subsequently, the cell suspension is depleted of cell debris by a "triple medium sedimentation procedure" without net loss of hemopoietic cells. Following centrifugation and resuspension the preparation is ready for either transplantation or storage. About 2 and 11 X 10(9) cells were obtained per liver depending on the age of fetus in the range of 16 and 24 weeks of gestation in three representative preparations. The cell suspension contained comparable numbers of hemopoietic progenitors to the adult bone marrow suspension as assayed using plasma clot diffusion chamber technique.