Fine-tuning Hematopoiesis: Microenvironmental factors regulating self-renewal and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells

Abstract

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have the ability to self renew and generate all lineages of blood cells. Although it is currently well established that hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) regenerate the blood compartment, it was only in the 1960s that was introduced the notion that multipotent progenitors can be found in the adult bone marrow (BM) and are responsible for the continuous production of blood throughout life. Since then, research from many different laboratories contributed to the phenotypic and functional characterization of HSCs and nowadays, the blood system constitutes a paradigm for understanding adult stem cell biology. HSCs are located at the top of a hierarchy of lineage specific progenitors that differentiate in an ordered fashion towards fully mature blood cells thereby undergoing a stepwise loss of lineage potential, and becoming progressively committed to a single hematopoietic lineage.