An Animal-Free Recombinant Lectin Molecule, Vpu-102, Supports Adult Stem Cells Ex Vivo Expansion and Differentiation Under Serum-Free Condition

The uses of human adult tissue-derived stem/progenitor cells for cell-based therapies have increased in the past few years. Many of these applications have started clinical trials.  However, for majority of cell culture processes associated with these clinical applications still requires the use of animal-derived components, including serum.  This dependency of animal-derived components in the stem cell cultures conveys the high level of safety risks, lot-to-lot inconsistencies and supply issues associated with the process.  At Irvine Scientific (IS), we developed a portfolio of new serum-free (SF), ready-to-use, and adaptable media products for ex vivo expansion and differentiation of adult stem/progenitor cells.   The coating substrate is often required to achieve optimal performance of IS SF media.  Majority of coating substrates used for SF stem cell culture, such as fibronectin, laminin or vitronectin that can be cost-effectively used for large-scale productions is derived from animal-origins.  In this study, we examined an animal-free recombinant Erythrina cristagalli lectin (agglutinin) (ECA) molecule, VPU-102, together with IS SF media for its application in supporting expansion and differentiation of human mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) and neural progenitor cells (NPCs).  ECA was initially identified for its ability to support human pluripotent stem cell cultures through its binding to N-acetyl lactosamine glycoconjuates commonly expressed structures by undifferentiated pluripotent stem cells.  We will present data to demonstrate VPU-102, a plant-expressed recombinant ECA, can be used to replace human plasma-derived fibronectin to support optimal expansions of human MSCs and NPCs up to 3 passages while maintain their proper marker expressions and multipotency. We will also demonstrate how VPU-102 was validated for its uses in SF differentiation process.  The availability of VPU-102 that can deliver fibronectin-comparable function in SF stem/progenitor cell cultures facilitates the potentials of human adult stem cells in any clinical application.