Patent ID: 7989178

Claim:
A method for determining both the proliferation status and the differentiation status in a population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells, the method comprising the steps of: (a) providing a cell population comprising primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells; (b) incubating the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells in a cell growth medium comprising fetal bovine serum having a concentration of between 0% and about 30%, methyl cellulose having a concentration of between about 0.4% and about 0.7%, and in an atmosphere having between about 3.5% oxygen and about 7.5% oxygen; (c) counting the number of colonies formed from the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells, wherein the number of colonies formed indicates the differentiation status of the cell population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells; (d) contacting the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells with a reagent capable of reacting with ATP and generating luminescence in the presence of ATP; (e) detecting luminescence generated by the reagent that reacted with the ATP in the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells, the level of luminescence indicating the amount of ATP in the cell population, wherein the amount of ATP indicates the proliferative status of the primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells; and (f) correlating the number of colonies formed from the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells with the amount of ATP detected from the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells, thereby determining the proliferation status and the differentiation status of the population of primitive lympho-hematopoietic cells.