Large-scale in vitro production of red blood cells from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells

We provide the first full account of transcriptional changes during terminal erythroid differentiation for cells grown under conditions of stress erythropoiesis. Samples were generated from PBMC's in three-stage culture system in Cellquin, an IMDB based culture medium optimized for erythroid outgrowth. The first two stages rely on presence of EPO Stem Cell Factor and dexamethasone (mimmicking stress erythropoiesis), followed by a terminal differentiation stage in presence of EPO and Holotransferrin. This culture set up allows for generation of large number of cultured Red Blood Cells that ar functionally and morphologically similar to ex-vivo red blood cells. Overall design: RNA sequencing accross 10 sampling points in erythroid differentiation (4 donors each).