The bones of the human skeletal system perform many crucial functions for the body. It can be anything from giving the human body a strong support to allowing us to move. Also, bone marrow plays an important role in the production of blood cells and fat storage. It is a spongy or viscous tissue that is present inside human bones. There are two types of bone marrow; red and yellow and how to isolate bone marrow can be quite a challenge..

The former helps produce red blood cells whereas the latter type helps in the storage of fat. Red bone marrow plays a significant role in hematopoiesis or blood cell production. So, it becomes crucial to transplant it in such patients who are suffering from a lack of blood cell production in the diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, immune deficiency disorders, etc. And that’s when the importance of impurity-free bone marrow isolation comes into the picture.

Being a clinician, if you have been struggling to isolate only bone marrow which is free from red blood cell contamination, visit https://thermogenesis.com/pxp-system-how-it-works/. The amazing PXP system by Thermogenesis helps you do flawless bone marrow isolation so you can get a huge amount of hematopoietic stem cells and progenitor stem cell populations.

However, just having the right equipment is not enough. You need to keep some crucial tips in mind for isolating pure bone marrow.

Maintain a Sterile Environment

If your final goal is to culture the isolated stem cells from the bone marrow concentrate, it is important to be sterile. You need to ensure that you are not compromising at all with the aseptic conditions of your lab. Using a fume hood to get rid of the bones and then heading towards a cell culture hood to get the bone marrow isolated is one of the most effective ways to maintain the right amount of sterility.

In this process, as the ends of the bones remain intact, you can be ensured that the marrow present inside is not contaminated. So, even if you think it’s tough to maintain a completely sterile condition before the isolation of the bones, just make sure that you are not exposing the intramedullary canal during the isolation process.

Make Use of Ice

It is important to keep the tissue on an ice pack or in a petri dish full of ice when it comes to bone marrow isolation. While you are working with the bone marrow, you need to put ice cubes in a petri dish that has already been autoclaved. This dish can hold your test tubes and plates while you are busy processing the cells. Yes, it is very crucial to use ice while you are in the cell culture hood. Moreover, you need to further keep your cells cold while using a refrigerated centrifuge. Why working in a chilled environment is significant while isolating bone marrow is because doing this will ensure that the finicky neutrophils present in the sample will not get activated.

Isolate from Humerus for Maximum Yield

Bone marrow isolation is mostly done from the long bones of the human body like the femur, tibia and humerus. Although isolating marrow from the femur and tibia will give you enough cell yield, if you need a really huge number of cells, you need to consider isolating bone marrow from the humerus. With one humerus, it is possible to isolate up to 2.5×106 cells! Isn’t it amazing?

Wrapping Up

This was all about how you need to isolate the maximum amount of bone marrow cells without any impurities in it. We hope the process of bone marrow isolation will seem to be a lot less daunting to you now. Just continue practicing the right approach and you will soon be an expert of this technique.