Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have discovered that endothelial cells, the building blocks of the vascular system, keep blood stem cells dividing healthily in a lab dish much longer and more effectively than previous methods of growing the cells. The new advance dramatically improves scientists’ ability to manufacture large quantities of authentic adult blood stem cells, which may help revolutionize the field of bone marrow transplantation.
Shahin Rafii, an HHMI investigator at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, and his colleagues report on the development of an endothelial cell platform that supports self-renewal of the blood stem cells, known as long-term hematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSCs), in the March 2010 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell. Their study also describes a novel mechanism by which endothelial cells support propagation of LT-HSCs in adult mice.
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