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Niches of Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Bone Marrow

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Abstract

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) exist in a close contact with their specific microenvironment, called a niche, which supports the HSC function and significantly influences the HSC properties. The existence of the HSC niche, which was proposed as a purely theoretical concept in 1978, finds increasing experimental evidence and is now generally accepted by specialists in the field of hematopoiesis. The review briefly describes various cell components of the HSC niche in bone marrow, considers the metabolic states of the niche and HSCs, and discusses other aspects of niche biology. Increasing knowledge of the HSC niche will help to create in vitro cell models of the HSC niche, to modulate the HSC properties, and to achieve multifold HSC expansion in culture for further applications in therapeutic practice.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 18-14-00300).

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  1. Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    A. V. Belyavsky

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Correspondence to A. V. Belyavsky.

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The author declares that he has no conflict of interest. This article does not contain any studies involving animals or human subjects performed by the author.

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Translated by T. Tkacheva

Abbreviations: HSC, hematopoietic stem cell; BM, bone marrow.

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Belyavsky, A.V. Niches of Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Bone Marrow. Mol Biol 53, 889–895 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0026893319060025

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