The Slukvin Laboratory
Faculty > Igor I. Slukvin
Igor I. Slukvin
Assistant Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
islukvin@wisc.edu
Organ System/Disease Focus
Blood disease
Aligned Research Focus
Hematopoietic differentiation of human embryonic stem cells, hematopoietic stem cell biology
Research Description
Embryonic stem (ES) cells represent a unique population of cells capable of self-renewal and differentiation. ES cells form any cell type in the body and can serve as a scalable cell source for transplantation and tissue engineering.
The main focus of my research is to establish the differentiation of human ES cells into the hematopoietic progenitors and mature blood cells in order to understand molecular mechanisms of early hematopoietic differentiation and to provide a novel source of cells for bone marrow transplantation, transfusion and cancer immunotherapy.
Recently, we identified two types of early hematopoietic progenitors generated from human embryonic stem cells: lin-CD43+CD45- and lin-CD43+CD45+. Both types of progenitors are capable of differentiating into cells myeloid and erythro-megakaryocytic lineages. However, only lin-CD43+CD45- cells poses lymphoid potential.
Analysis of SAGE libraries established from these hematopoietic progenitors and fetal liver and adult hematopoietic cells reveals unique features of transcriptome from ES cell-derived hematopoietic progenitors, which may explain their limited engraftment potential. These findings set the stage for new approaches to investigating the molecular pathways needed to generate hematopoietic stem cells with long-term repopulating activity from human ES cells.
In addition, we are working on identifying cellular pathways leading to the development of hematopoietic cells from common hematoendothelial precursors.
Selected References
Vodyanik MA, Thomson JA, Slukvin II. Leukosialin (CD43) defines hematopoietic progenitors in human embryonic stem cell differentiation cultures. Blood 108(6):2095-2105. 2006.
Slukvin II, Vodyanik MA, Thomson JA, Gumenyuk ME, Choi K. Directed differentiation of functional dendritic cells form human embryonic stem cells through the myeloid pathway. Journal of Immunology 176:2924-2932. 2006.
Yu J, Vodyanik MA, He P, Slukvin II, Thomson JA. Human Embryonic Stem Cells Reprogram Myeloid Precursors Following Cell-Cell Fusion. Stem Cells. 24(1):168-176. 2006.
Slukvin I, Grendell R, Rao D, Golos T. Cloning of rhesus monkey LILRs. Tissue Antigens, 67(4):331-337. 2006.
Vodyanik MA, Bork JA, Thomson JA, Slukvin II. Human embryonic stem cell-derived CD34+ cells: efficient production in the co-culture with OP9 stromal cells and analysis of lymphohematopoietic potential. Blood 105(2):617-26. 2005.