Hematopoiesis has long served as a paradigm of stem cell biology and tissue homeostasis. In the past decade, the genomics revolution has ushered in powerful new methods for investigating the hematopoietic system that have provided transformative insights into its biology. As part of the advances in genomics, increasingly accurate deep sequencing and novel methods of cell tracking have revealed hematopoiesis to be more of a continuous and less of a discrete and punctuated process than originally envisioned. In part, this continuous nature of hematopoiesis is made possible by the emergent outcomes of vast, interconnected regulatory networks that influence cell fates and lineage commitment. It is also becoming clear how these mechanisms are modulated by genetic variation present throughout the population. This review describes how these recently uncovered complexities are reshaping our concept of tissue development and homeostasis while opening up a more comprehensive future understanding of hematopoiesis.

造血作用长期以来一直是干细胞生物学和组织稳态的范例。在过去的十年中，基因组学革命带来了研究造血系统的强大新方法，为其生物学提供了变革性的见解。作为基因组学进步的一部分，越来越准确的深度测序和细胞追踪的新方法揭示了造血过程比最初设想的更连续，而不是离散和间断的过程。在某种程度上，造血作用的这种连续性是由影响细胞命运和谱系定向的巨大、相互关联的调控网络的出现结果实现的。人们也越来越清楚这些机制是如何通过整个人群中存在的遗传变异来调节的。这篇综述描述了这些最近发现的复杂性如何重塑我们对组织发育和稳态的概念，同时开启对造血作用更全面的未来理解。