scholarly journals Long-term erythropoietic repopulating ability of old, young, and fetal stem cells.

1983 ◽  
Vol 157 (5) ◽  
pp. 1496-1504 ◽  
Author(s):  
D E Harrison

It is possible that erythropoietic stem cells do not age. This would mean that stem cells from old donors can function as well as those from young or fetal donors. The competitive repopulation assay has been used to test long-term stem cell function by directly comparing how well competing stem cells repopulate a recipient and produce differentiated cell types. C57BL/6J (B6) mice were used as donors, while recipients and competitors were WBB6F1 hybrids with genetically distinguishable hemoglobin. Lethally irradiated young WBB6F1 recipients were given a mixture of 2.5 X 10(6) cells from B6 old marrow, young marrow, or fetal liver donors; each recipient also received a standard dose of 1 X 10(6) marrow cells from a pool of young WBB6F1 competitors. Surprisingly, the old marrow cells competed the best in repopulating the recipients. This pattern was maintained even after recovery from sublethal irradiation, a treatment that severely stresses stem cells. This stress was demonstrated when sublethal irradiation caused a 20-fold decline in repopulating ability measured using hemoglobin markers, and a 3- to 7-fold decline using chromosome markers. Stem cells from old marrow competed better than young or fetal cells in similar experiments using immunologically crippled recipients or using unirradiated W/Wv recipients that are immunologically intact. In both types of recipients, the advantage of old marrow cells again persisted after recovery from sublethal irradiation. Other genotypes were tested, and marrow cells from old B6CBAF1 donors competed better than those from young donors of that genotype. However, marrow cells from young CBA donors completed better than those from old CBA donors. These results support the hypothesis that stem cells do not age, and suggest that regulatory changes with age promote rapid stem cell repopulation in B6 and B6CBAF1 mice, but inhibit it in CBA mice.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 666
Author(s):  
Toshio Takahashi

Stem cells have extensive proliferative potential and the ability to differentiate into one or more mature cell types. The mechanisms by which stem cells accomplish self-renewal provide fundamental insight into the origin and design of multicellular organisms. These pathways allow the repair of damage and extend organismal life beyond that of component cells, and they probably preceded the evolution of complex metazoans. Understanding the true nature of stem cells can only come from discovering how they are regulated. The concept that stem cells are controlled by particular microenvironments, also known as niches, has been widely accepted. Technical advances now allow characterization of the zones that maintain and control stem cell activity in several organs, including the brain, skin, and gut. Cholinergic neurons release acetylcholine (ACh) that mediates chemical transmission via ACh receptors such as nicotinic and muscarinic receptors. Although the cholinergic system is composed of organized nerve cells, the system is also involved in mammalian non-neuronal cells, including stem cells, embryonic stem cells, epithelial cells, and endothelial cells. Thus, cholinergic signaling plays a pivotal role in controlling their behaviors. Studies regarding this signal are beginning to unify our understanding of stem cell regulation at the cellular and molecular levels, and they are expected to advance efforts to control stem cells therapeutically. The present article reviews recent findings about cholinergic signaling that is essential to control stem cell function in a cholinergic niche.


Blood ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 116 (21) ◽  
pp. 1577-1577
Author(s):  
Yaoyu Chen ◽  
Sullivan Con ◽  
Yiguo Hu ◽  
Linghong Kong ◽  
Cong Peng ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 1577 Hematopoiesis is a tightly regulated biological process that relies upon complicated interactions between the blood cells and their microenvironment. Adhesion molecules like P-selectin are essential to hematopoiesis, and their dysregulation has been implicated in leukemogenesis. We have previously shown a role for P-selectin in chronic myeloid leukemia and demonstrated that in its absence the disease process accelerates. Recently, there has also been speculation that P-selectin may play a role in the aging hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), as its expression in upregulated as a mouse ages. In this study, we show that the loss of P-selectin function dysregulates the balance of stem cells and progenitors and that these differences become more pronounced with age. We compared the percentages of HSCs, long-term (LT)-HSCs, short-term (ST)-HSCs, multipotent progenitors (MPPs), CMPs, GMPs and MEPs in bone marrow by flow cytometry between wild type (WT) and Selp-/- mice. An age-dependent LT-HSC expansion was observed in WT mice. However, this expansion was prevented by the loss of Selp as observed in Selp-/-mice. Further, we demonstrate that with age LT-HSCs in particular express more elevated levels of P-selectin. LT-HSCs and ST-HSC/MPPs were isolated from the bone marrow of young (2 months old) and old (15 months old) WT mice and examined P-selectin expression by FACS. A significant increase in P-selectin expression was observed in LT-HSCs of old mice, and this increase was not observed in the ST-HSC+MPP subpopulations. We also show that the loss of P-selectin gene has profound effects of stem cell function, altering the capacity of these cells to home. Despite impaired homing capacity, stem cells lacking P-selectin possess a competitive advantage over their wild type counterparts. Using a stem cell competition assay, HSCs derived from Selp-/- mice (CD45.2+) and WT control mice (CD45.2+GFP+) were mixed in 1:1 ratio and transplanted into irradiated WT recipients (CD45.1). The initial findings were potentially indicative of the ability of cells derived from GFP mice to more efficiently home and engraft. Despite this initial advantage, cells derived from Selp-/- eventually exhibited a competitive and statistically significant advantage over the cells derived from GFP mice. At 30 days post-transplant, 49.9±1.4% of the CD45.2 subpopulation was GFP+. At 86 days post-transplant, 25.7±3.3 % of the CD45.2 cells derived from the peripheral blood were GFP+. Similarly, 23.0±3.7% of the CD45.2 cells derived from the bone marrow of these mice were GFP+. Indeed, we demonstrate that recipients of P-selectin deficient bone marrow cells more efficiently repopulate the bone marrow than controls and that this advantage extends and expands in the long-term. Finally, we demonstrate that recipients of leukemic cells lacking P-selectin develop a more accelerated form of leukemia accompanied by significant increases in stem and progenitor cells. Bone marrow cells from donor WT and Selp-/- mice were infected with retrovirus expressing BCR-ABL-GFP, and irradiated WT recipients were transplanted with 2×105 of these transduced donor cells. At 14 days post-transplant, recipient mice from each of the groups were sacrificed, and bone marrow cells were harvested and analyzed by flow cytometry. Recipients of leukemic Selp-/- cells possessed 3.5-fold more LSCs than recipients of wild-type cells. There were 3.1-fold more LT-LSCs and 3.8-fold more ST-LSCs and MPPs in recipients of Selp-/- cells than WT cells. In addition, recipients of leukemic Selp-/- cells possessed significantly more CMP (16.9-fold) and MEP (4.5-fold) cells. Because P-selectin expression increases with age on LT-HSCs, we sought to determine the role that age plays in CML development and progression. Bone marrow cells derived from 15-month-old donor Selp-/- and WT mice were transduced with BCR-ABL, respectively, followed by transplantation of the transduced cells into recipient mice. All recipients of BCR-ABL transduced Selp-/- cells died by 23 days after induction of CML and had a median survival of 19 days, whereas recipients of the transduced WT cells survived significantly longer. This pro-leukemic role for cells lacking P-selectin expression is leukemic stem cell-specific rather than stromal cell-specific and supports an essential role for P-selectin on leukemic stem cells. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Blood ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 120 (21) ◽  
pp. 2308-2308
Author(s):  
Laura R Goldberg ◽  
Mark S Dooner ◽  
Mandy Pereira ◽  
Michael DelTatto ◽  
Elaine Papa ◽  
...  

Abstract Abstract 2308 Hematopoietic stem cell biologists have amassed a tremendous depth of knowledge about the biology of the marrow stem cell over the past few decades, facilitating invaluable basic scientific and translational advances in the field. Most of the studies to date have focused on highly purified populations of marrow cells, with emphasis placed on the need to isolate increasingly restricted subsets of marrow cells within the larger population of resident bone marrow cells in order to get an accurate picture of the true stem cell phenotype. Such studies have led to the dogma that marrow stem cells are quiescent with a stable phenotype and therefore can be purified to homogeneity. However, work from our laboratory, focusing on the stem cell potential in un-separated whole bone marrow (WBM), supports an alternate view of marrow stem cell biology in which a large population of marrow stem cells are actively cycling, continually changing phenotype with cell cycle transit, and therefore, cannot be purified to homogeneity. Our studies separating WBM into cell cycle-specific fractions using Hoechst 33342/Pyronin Y or exposing WBM to tritiated thymidine suicide followed by competitive engraftment into lethally irradiated mice revealed that over 50% of the long-term multi-lineage engraftment potential in un-separated marrow was due to cells in S/G2/M. This is in stark contrast to studies showing that highly purified stem cell populations such as LT-HSC (Lineage–c-kit+sca-1+flk2−) engraft predominantly when in G0. Additionally, by performing standard isolation of a highly purified population of stem cells, SLAM cells (Lineage–c-kit+sca-1+flk2−CD150+CD41−CD48−), and testing the engraftment potential of different cellular fractions created and routinely discarded during this purification process, we found that 90% of the potential engraftment capacity in WBM was lost during conventional SLAM cell purification. Incubation of the Lineage-positive and Lineage-negative fractions with tritiated thymidine, a DNA analogue which selectively kills cells traversing S-phase, led to dramatic reductions in long-term multi-lineage engraftment potential found within both cellular fractions (over 95% and 85% reduction, respectively). This indicates that the discarded population of stem cells during antibody-based stem cell purification is composed largely of cycling cells. In sum, these data strongly support that 1) whole bone marrow contains actively cycling stem cells capable of long-term multi-lineage engraftment, 2) these actively cycling marrow stem cells are lost during the standard stem cell purification strategies, and 3) the protean phenotype of actively cycling cells as they transit through cell cycle will render cycling marrow stem cells difficult to purify to homogeneity. Given the loss of a large pool of actively cycling HSC during standard stem cell isolation techniques, these data underscore the need to re-evaluate the total hematopoietic stem cell pool on a population level in addition to a clonal level in order to provide a more comprehensive study of HSC biology. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Blood ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 128 (22) ◽  
pp. 5055-5055
Author(s):  
Zhenhua Yang ◽  
Hao Jiang

Abstract While stem cells undergo phenotypic and functional changes in development, the capacity of self-renewal and differentiation remains the defining property of stem cells throughout life, indicating certain fundamental regulatory mechanisms underlying these cardinal features of stem cells. A profound transition occurs to hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) from embryonic to adult hematopoiesis, resulting in pronounced distinctions between fetal liver (FL) and adult bone marrow (BM) HSCs in many aspects. While many studies have documented a different dependence of fetal versus adult HSC function on epigenetic modulators including several Polycomb proteins, little is known about if Trithorax proteins play a similar or different role in fetal versus adult HSC function. More specifically, despite being a prominent epigenetic mark associated with gene activation, the role of H3K4 methylation (an activity of many Trithorax proteins) in different stages of HSCs remains unclear. As the major H3K4 methylases in mammals, the Set1/Mll family complexes play important roles in development and stem cell function, and are extensively associated with diseases including blood cancers. We have previously established a direct role of Dpy30, a core subunit in all Set1/Mll complexes, in facilitating genome-wide H3K4 methylation, and this allows an effective interrogation of the functional role of efficient H3K4 methylation through genetic studies of Dpy30. While dispensable for the self-renewal of embryonic stem cells (ESCs), Dpy30 is crucial for efficient differentiation of ESCs by facilitating the induction of many bivalently marked developmental genes (Jiang et al., Cell, 2011). We have then generated a Dpy30 conditional knockout mouse, and shown that Dpy30 plays a crucial role in the long term maintenance and differentiation of adult BM HSCs, and preferentially controls H3K4 methylation and expression of many hematopoiesis-associated genes in adult BM cells (Yang et al., J Exp Med, accepted). However, the role of Dpy30 and efficient H3K4 methylation in fetal HSCs is still unknown. To study the role of efficient H3K4 methylation in fetal HSCs, we deleted Dpy30 in fetal hematopoietic cells using VavCre line. VavCre; Dpy30F/- fetuses are anemic at E14.5 and E15.5, with reduced H3K4 methylation but significantly increased numbers of FL HSCs. However, these FL HSCs were functionally defective in colony formation and blood reconstitution following transplantation. Proliferation of the progenitors, but not HSCs, was significantly (but modestly) reduced. These results suggest a role of Dpy30 in differentiation of HSCs and progenitor proliferation in FL. We also competitively transplanted Mx1Cre; Dpy30F/- FL and deleted Dpy30 after stable engraftment. Our analysis at an early time point after deletion showed little effect on donor contribution to HSCs, but significant reduction of oligopotent progenitors. Analysis at a later time point after deletion, however, showed marked reduction of all hematopoietic cells including HSCs. These results support a cell-autonomous role of Dpy30 in the differentiation and long term maintenance of FL HSCs. The phenotypes of FL HSCs are largely similar to those of BM HSCs following Dpy30 loss, suggesting that Dpy30 and certain Dpy30 targets are fundamentally important in regulating HSCs regardless of the developmental stages. To identify these targets, we performed RNA-seq analyses for purified FL HSCs from VavCre; Dpy30F/- versus VavCre; Dpy30F/+ littermates. Among hundreds of genes that were significantly changed in FL HSCs, however, only a handful of genes were found to be co-downregulated in both FL and BM HSCs following Dpy30 loss, suggesting that Dpy30 may have different functional targets in different stages of HSCs. To identify Dpy30 targets fundamentally important to HSC regulation, we are now selectively investigating the function of a few common Dpy30 targets in HSCs by colony formation and potentially transplantation assays following their stable knockdown. The similar requirement of Dpy30 in both fetal and adult HSC differentiation as well as long-term maintenance underscores the fundamental importance of this epigenetic modulator in the central properties of stem cells, and studies of the common Dpy30 targets may identify new regulatory genes controlled by this modulator in fetal and adult HSC function. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Blood ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 9-10
Author(s):  
Na Yoon Paik ◽  
Grace E. Brown ◽  
Lijian Shao ◽  
Kilian Sottoriva ◽  
James Hyun ◽  
...  

Over 17,000 people require bone marrow transplants annually, based on the US department of Health and Human Services (https://bloodcell.transplant.hrsa.gov). Despite its high therapeutic value in treatment of cancer and autoimmune disorders, transplant of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) is limited by the lack of sufficient source material due primarily inadequate expansion of functional HSCs ex vivo. Hence, establishing a system to readily expand human umbilical cord blood or bone marrow HSCs in vitro would greatly support clinical efforts, and provide a readily available source of functional stem cells for transplantation. While the bone marrow is the main site of adult hematopoiesis, the fetal liver is the primary organ of hematopoiesis during embryonic development. The fetal liver is the main site of HSC expansion during hematopoietic development, furthermore the adult liver can also become a temporary extra-medullary site of hematopoiesis when the bone marrow is damaged. We have created a bioengineered micropatterned coculture (MPCC) system that consists of primary human hepatocytes (PHHs) islands surrounded and supported by 3T3-J2 mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Long-term establishment of stable PHH-MPCC allows us to culture and expand HSC in serum-free medium supplemented with pro-hematopoietic cytokines such as stem cell factor (SCF) and thrombopoietin (TPO). HSCs cultured on this PHH-MPCC microenvironment for two weeks expanded over 200-fold and formed tight clusters around the periphery of the PHH islands. These expanded cells also retained the expression of progenitor markers of Lin-, Sca1+, cKit+, as well as the long-term HSC phenotypic markers of CD48- and CD150+. In addition to the phenotypic analysis, the expanded cells were transplanted into lethally irradiated recipient mice to determine HSC functionality. The expanded cells from the PHH-MPCC microenvironment were able to provide multi-lineage reconstitution potential in primary and secondary transplants. With our bioengineered MPCC system, we further plan to scale up functional expansion of human HSC ex vivo and to better understand the mechanistic, cell-based niche factors that lead to maintenance and expansion HSC. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.


Blood ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
JF Apperley ◽  
BD Luskey ◽  
DA Williams

Retroviral-mediated gene transfer of human adenosine deaminase (hADA) provides a model system for the development of somatic gene therapy as a therapy for diseases of bone marrow-derived cells. We have previously demonstrated that hADA can be observed in all hematopoietic lineages in a minority of mice transplanted with bone marrow cells infected with a simplified retroviral vector, ZipPGK-ADA. Here we report a majority of mice (six of eight) demonstrate expression of hADA in the peripheral blood at least 6 months after transplantation with bone marrow infected with this simplified retroviral vector, which contains no selectable marker. The failure to express hADA in two of eight mice was associated with the absence of the recombinant retroviral provirus in DNA prepared from bone marrow cells of these mice apparently due to failure to efficiently infect the reconstituting hematopoietic stem cell. In an effort to preselect bone marrow stem cells containing proviral integrations, we incorporated the selectable marker neo phosphotransferase (NEO) into a retroviral vector encoding hADA, N2/ZipPGK-ADATKNEO, and used G418 selection of infected bone marrow cells before transplantation. In contrast to the simplified retroviral vector, hADA expression in these recipients was short lived (less than 8 weeks), despite the continued presence of intact provirus in DNA prepared from bone marrow of these mice. To determine whether the preselection of bone marrow using G418 was responsible for the lack of sustained hADA expression, we repeated the infection with the N2/ZipPGK- ADATKNEO vector but omitted the G418 selection step. Again, the majority of recipient mice failed to express hADA long term, although the continued presence of provirus in DNA prepared from peripheral blood cell mononuclear cells was clearly demonstrated. Finally, we demonstrate clonal fluctuation of infected stem cells, and observe a temporal correlation between cessation of expression of hADA and the emergence of a dominant stem cell clone between 14 and 20 weeks posttransplantation in one recipient. These data suggest that inclusion of a second transcriptional unit that includes neo phosphotransferase sequences in this simplified vector is associated with decreased expression of the nonselectable ADA sequences.


Blood ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 106 (11) ◽  
pp. 267-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Maillard ◽  
Seth E. Pross ◽  
Olga Shestova ◽  
Hong Sai ◽  
Jon C. Aster ◽  
...  

Abstract Canonical Notch signaling operates through a highly conserved pathway that regulates the differentiation and homeostasis of hematopoietic cells. Ligand-receptor binding initiates proteolytic release of the Notch intracellular domain (ICN) which migrates to the nucleus, binds the transcription factor CSL/RBPJk and activates target genes through the recruitment of transcriptional coactivators of the Mastermind-like family (MAML). Notch signaling is essential for the emergence of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) during fetal life, but its effects on adult HSCs are controversial. In gain-of-function experiments, activation of Notch signaling in adult HSCs increased their self-renewal potential in vitro and in vivo. However, loss-of-function studies have provided conflicting results as to the role of physiological Notch signaling in HSC maintenance and homeostasis. To address this question, we expressed DNMAML1, a GFP-tagged pan-inhibitor of Notch signaling, in mouse HSCs. We have shown previously that DNMAML1 interferes with the formation of the ICN/CSL/MAML transcriptional activation complex and blocks signaling from all four Notch receptors (Notch1-4) (Maillard, Blood 2004). Transfer of DNMAML1-transduced bone marrow (BM) as compared to control GFP-transduced BM into lethally irradiated recipients gave rise to similar long-term stable expression of GFP for at least 6 months after transplant. DNMAML1 and GFP-transduced cells contributed equally to all hematopoietic lineages, except to the T cell and marginal zone B cell lineages, which are Notch-dependent. Expression of DNMAML1 did not affect the size of the BM progenitor compartment (Lin negative, Sca-1 positive, c-Kit high, or LSK cells), or the proportion of LSK cells that were negative for Flt3 and L-Selectin expression (containing long-term HSCs). The stem cell function of DNMAML1-transduced LSK cells was further assessed with in vivo competitive repopulation assays in lethally irradiated recipients. DNMAML1 and GFP-transduced LSK cells competed equally well with wild-type BM, as judged by their contribution to the myeloid lineage up to 4 months post-transplant, through two successive rounds of transplantation. Our data indicate that canonical Notch signaling is dispensable for the maintenance of stem cell function in adult HSCs.


Blood ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 1021-1025 ◽  
Author(s):  
DE Harrison ◽  
CP Lerner ◽  
E Spooncer

Abstract Hemopoietic precursors are heterogeneous with respect to their capacity for self-renewal and long-term repopulating ability. Bone marrow cultures produce a variety of precursors over many weeks, including CFU- S; however, it is important to determine whether these populations retain the functional ability shown by fresh marrow. The most primitive precursor or stem cells have the most long-term repopulating ability. We here describe direct measurements of this ability in cells from marrow cultures by using competitive repopulation assays. Cultured adherent cells repeatedly showed less capacity than fresh marrow cells to repopulate erythropoiesis in irradiated recipients, whereas cultured suspension cells consistently had less capacity than adherent cells. Concentrations of macroscopic CFU-S measured at nine or 12 days were similar in cultured adherent and suspension cells and generally lower than those in fresh marrow. In every experiment, the long-term repopulating ability of the marrow cells used was substantially reduced after transfer into tissue culture. Thus, primitive stem cells may not proliferate in such cultures despite extensive production of CFU-S and more differentiated cell types.


1992 ◽  
Vol 175 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Uchida ◽  
I L Weissman

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are defined in mice by three activities: they must rescue lethally irradiated mice (radioprotection), they must self-renew, and they must restore all blood cell lineages permanently. We initially demonstrated that HSCs were contained in a rare (approximately 0.05%) subset of bone marrow cells with the following surface marker profile: Thy-1.1lo Lin- Sca-1+. These cells were capable of long-term, multi-lineage reconstitution and radioprotection of lethally irradiated mice with an enrichment that mirrors their representation in bone marrow, namely, 1,000-2,000-fold. However, the experiments reported did not exclude the possibility that stem cell activity may also reside in populations that are Thy-1.1-, Sca-1-, or Lin+. In this article stem cell activity was determined by measuring: (a) radioprotection provided by sorted cells; (b) long-term, multi-lineage reconstitution of these surviving mice; and (c) long-term, multi-lineage reconstitution by donor cells when radioprotection is provided by coinjection of congenic host bone marrow cells. Here we demonstrate that HSC activity was detected in Thy-1.1+, Sca-1+, and Lin- fractions, but not Thy-1.1-, Sca-1-, or Lin+ bone marrow cells. We conclude that Thy-1.1lo Lin- Sca-1+ cells comprise the only adult C57BL/Ka-Thy-1.1 mouse bone marrow subset that contains pluripotent HSCs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 217 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brice E. Keyes ◽  
Elaine Fuchs

Stem cells are imbued with unique qualities. They have the capacity to propagate themselves through symmetric divisions and to divide asymmetrically to engender new cells that can progress to differentiate into tissue-specific, terminal cell types. Armed with these qualities, stem cells in adult tissues are tasked with replacing decaying cells and regenerating tissue after injury to maintain optimal tissue function. With increasing age, stem cell functional abilities decline, resulting in reduced organ function and delays in tissue repair. Here, we review the effect of aging in five well-studied adult murine stem cell populations and explore age-related declines in stem cell function and their consequences for stem cell self-renewal, tissue homeostasis, and regeneration. Finally, we examine transcriptional changes that have been documented in aged stem cell populations and discuss new questions and future directions that this collection of data has uncovered.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document