CD117hi expression identifies a human fetal hematopoietic stem cell population with high proliferation and self-renewal potential

We identified and characterized a CD34+CD38-CD45+CD117hi population of HSCs present all along human fetal liver development. CD117hi (HSC) and CD117lo (HC) populations were sorted from first trimester (T1) and second trimester (T2) fetal livers to perform pair-wise comparison between HSCs and HCs. CD34+CD38-CD45+CD117hi (HSC) and CD34+CD38-CD45+CD117lo (HC) populations were sorted from T1 (n=4) and T2 (n=2) fetal livers and RNA was purified using RNeasy Plus Micro Kit (Qiagen). RNA concentration and integrity were evaluated with the Agilent Bioanalyzer 2100 and 2 ng of total RNA reverse transcribed following the Ovation Pico System V2 (Nugen). cDNA is then hybridized to GeneChip® HumanGene2.0ST (Affymetrix).