After migration into blood circulation, hematopoietic stem cells can stably self-renew and maintain bone marrow while being skewed toward myeloid lineage when submitted to serial transplantation

Abstract

AbstractHematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) mainly reside in bone marrow (BM) within niches providing an appropriate environment for their survival and self-renewal. Although, small numbers of HSCs can quit their residing environment to migrate into blood circulation and re-engraft elsewhere in BM. Mobilizing agents such as granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) can amplify this process by inducing massive HSC mobilization into blood circulation. This method is widely used in clinics to treat hematological disorders. However, in physiological conditions, the properties of HSCs after migration (called migratory HSCs) remain incompletely characterized. In this study, we investigated the capacity of migratory HSCs to self-renew, reconstitute and maintain BM. We show that after migration, HSCs can stably self-renew and maintain BM in homeostasis. However, while stably repopulating BM of irradiated recipients, migratory HSCs show a defect in lymphoid lineage reconstitution when subjected to serial transplantations. Our findings provide interesting knowledge on HSC properties after migration, which may benefits therapeutic research on HSC-based therapies to treat hematological disorders.