Citation

Yu VWC, Yusuf RZ, Oki T, Wu J, Saez B, Wang X, Cook C, Baryawno N, Ziller MJ, Lee E, Gu H, Meissner A, Lin CP, Kharchenko PV, Scadden DT. 2017. Epigenetic Memory Underlies Cell-Autonomous Heterogeneous Behavior of Hematopoietic Stem Cells. Cell. 168(5):944-945. Pubmed: 28235203 DOI:S0092-8674(17)30188-5

Abstract

Stem cells determine homeostasis and repair of many tissues and are increasingly recognized as functionally heterogeneous. To define the extent of—and molecular basis for—heterogeneity, we overlaid functional, transcriptional, and epigenetic attributes of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) at a clonal level using endogenous fluorescent tagging. Endogenous HSC had clone-specific functional attributes in vivo. The intra-clonal behaviors were highly stereotypic, conserved under the stress of transplantation, inflammation, and genotoxic injury, and associated with distinctive transcriptional, DNA methylation, and chromatin accessibility patterns. Further, HSC function corresponded to epigenetic configuration but not always to transcriptional state. Therefore, hematopoiesis under homeostatic and stress conditions represents the integrated action of highly heterogeneous clones of HSC with epigenetically scripted behaviors. This high degree of epigenetically driven cell autonomy among HSCs implies that refinement of the concepts of stem cell plasticity and of the stem cell niche is warranted.

Related Faculty

Photo of David Scadden

David Scadden’s laboratory is dedicated to discovering the principles governing blood cell production, with the ultimate goal of guiding the development of therapies for blood disorders and cancer.

Photo of Alex Meissner

The Meissner laboratory uses genomic tools to study stem cell biology with a particular focus on epigenetic reprogramming.

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