How blood stem cells maintain their lifelong potential for self-renewal – New publication in Nature Communications
A characteristic feature of all stem cells is their ability to self-renew. But how is this potential maintained throughout life? Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology and Experimental Medicine* (HI-STEM) have now discovered in mice that cells in the so-called „stem cell niche“ are responsible for this: Blood vessel cells of the niche produce a factor that stimulates blood stem cells and thus maintains their self-renewal capacity. With the decades of life, the production of this factor ceases and blood stem cells begin to age.