Guest editorial: Hematopoietic stem cells

Excerpt

Hematopoiesis is supported by hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), a rare population of cells in the bone marrow (BM) specialized to generate all blood lineages throughout lifetime. HSCs retain two important capacities to maintain hematopoiesis—multilineage differentiation and self-renewal capacities. Self-renewal capacity is a common characteristic shared by all somatic stem cells for them not to be depleted by cell division during production of downstream hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs). Such HSC capacities are under strict control by various cues from cell interior and surrounding external environment. Molecular mechanism of HSC regulation attracted enormous attention by researchers for decades, and novel technologies such as genetically modified mouse models, highly sensitive metabolome analysis, next-generation sequencing and immunohistochemical analysis of the BM have tremendously moved our understanding of HSCs forward to the current level. …