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Sympathy for stem cells

Nerve signals (left) direct the release of stem cells (right). FRENETTE/ELSEVIER

The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for emergencies. Heart rate and blood pressure rise, pupils dilate, blood is shunted from skin to muscle, and the gut shuts down. Now, Yoshio Katayama, Paul Frenette (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY), and colleagues suggest another consequence of sympathetic nervous system activation: hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) exit the bone marrow and enter the blood. These HSPCs may be anticipating future injuries that will need a repair crew.

Frenette started out not with the nervous system but with a sulfated sugar polymer from seaweed. This sugar could mobilize HSPCs, presumably via an effect on adhesion, and the mouse Cgt enzyme made a sulfated glycolipid that looked similar. Mice lacking this Cgt enzyme had impaired HSPC mobilization.

But ideas about adhesion problems fell away as the team realized that the mutant mice had other problems. The mice have severe defects in their sympathetic nervous system because they cannot make major myelin sheath components. Chemical poisoning of the sympathetic nervous system also led to defects in HSPC mobilization in wild-type mice.

The team found that the sympathetic nervous system works cooperatively with the cytokine G-CSF to change the morphology and behavior of osteoblasts. These bone-generating cells normally make the CXCL12 chemokine, which attracts HSPCs to keep them in the bone marrow. But the G-CSF and sympathetic nervous system signals reduced CXCL12 levels so that HSPCs could escape into the bloodstream.

Enforced mobilization is used clinically to harvest HSPCs, but the physiological significance of the mobilization, and the uses to which these mobilized cells are put, are poorly defined. One report suggests that running a marathon gets HSPCs out, perhaps to do repairs. Frenette plans to test conditions such as these, and to determine what cell type the G-CSF is acting upon.

Reference:

Katayama, Y., et al. 2006. Cell. 124:407–421.[CrossRef][Medline]

William A. Wells

wellsw{at}rockefeller.edu

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This Article Full Text (PDF, 1620K) PPT slides of all figures Alert me when this article is cited Services Email this article Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new content in the JCB Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wells, W. A. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Wells, W. A. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?