Haematopoietic stem cells depend on Galpha(s)-mediated signalling to engraft bone marrow.

Haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) change location during development and circulate in mammals throughout life, moving into and out of the bloodstream to engage bone marrow niches in sequential steps of homing, engraftment and retention. Here we show that HSPC engraftment of bone marrow in fetal development is dependent on the guanine-nucleotide-binding protein stimulatory alpha subunit (Galpha(s)). HSPCs from adult mice deficient in Galpha(s) (Galpha(s)(-/-)) differentiate and undergo chemotaxis, but also do not home to or engraft in the bone marrow in adult mice and demonstrate a marked inability to engage the marrow microvasculature. If deleted after engraftment, Galpha(s) deficiency did not lead to lack of retention in the marrow, rather cytokine-induced mobilization into the blood was impaired. Testing whether activation of Galpha(s) affects HSPCs, pharmacological activators enhanced homing and engraftment in vivo. Galpha(s) governs specific aspects of HSPC localization under physiological conditions in vivo and may be pharmacologically targeted to improve transplantation efficiency.

Stem cell engraftment at the endosteal niche is specified by the calcium-sensing receptor.

During mammalian ontogeny, haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) translocate from the fetal liver to the bone marrow, where haematopoiesis occurs throughout adulthood. Unique features of bone that contribute to a microenvironmental niche for stem cells might include the known high concentration of calcium ions at the HSC-enriched endosteal surface. Cells respond to extracellular ionic calcium concentrations through the seven-transmembrane-spanning calcium-sensing receptor (CaR), which we identified as being expressed on HSCs. Here we show that, through the CaR, the simple ionic mineral content of the niche may dictate the preferential localization of adult mammalian haematopoiesis in bone. Antenatal mice deficient in CaR had primitive haematopoietic cells in the circulation and spleen, whereas few were found in bone marrow. CaR-/- HSCs from fetal liver were normal in number, in proliferative and differentiative function, and in migration and homing to the bone marrow. Yet they were highly defective in localizing anatomically to the endosteal niche, behaviour that correlated with defective adhesion to the extracellular matrix protein, collagen I. CaR has a function in retaining HSCs in close physical proximity to the endosteal surface and the regulatory niche components associated with it.

Therapeutic targeting of a stem cell niche.

The specialized microenvironment or niche where stem cells reside provides regulatory input governing stem cell function. We tested the hypothesis that targeting the niche might improve stem cell-based therapies using three mouse models that are relevant to clinical uses of hematopoietic stem (HS) cells. We and others previously identified the osteoblast as a component of the adult HS cell niche and established that activation of the parathyroid hormone (PTH) receptor on osteoblasts increases stem cell number. Here we show that pharmacologic use of PTH increases the number of HS cells mobilized into the peripheral blood for stem cell harvests, protects stem cells from repeated exposure to cytotoxic chemotherapy and expands stem cells in transplant recipients. These data provide evidence that the niche may be an attractive target for drug-based stem cell therapeutics.

Heterologous cells cooperate to augment stem cell migration, homing, and engraftment.

T-lymphocyte depletion of bone marrow grafts compromises engraftment, suggesting a facilitating mechanism provided by the T cells that has been shown to associate with CD8(+) but not CD4(+) T cells. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on immune targeting of residual host cells or cytokine production. We provide evidence for an alternative mechanism based on cooperative effects on cell motility. We observed that engraftment of CD34(+) cells in a beta(2)-microglobulin-deficient nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficiency (beta(2)m(-/-) NOD/SCID) mouse model paralleled clinical observations in humans, with an enhancing effect noted from the addition of CD8(+) cells but not CD4(+) cells. This correlated with CD8(+) augmentation of CD34(+) cell homing to the bone marrow in vivo and CD8(+) cell-associated increases of CD34(+) cell transmigration through a bone marrow endothelial cell line in vitro. The cooperative interaction was not sensitive to brefeldin A inhibition of protein secretion. However, cytochalasin D-induced inhibition of CD8(+) cytoskeletal rearrangements abrogated CD34(+) transendothelial migration and impaired CD34(+) cell homing in vivo. CD8(+) cells did not migrate in tandem with CD34(+) cells or alter endothelial barrier integrity; rather, they affected phosphotyrosine-mediated signaling in CD34(+) cells in response to the chemokine stromal derived factor-1alpha (SDF-1alpha). These data demonstrate cell-cell cooperativity between different cell types in mediating chemotactic events and provide one potential explanation for the clinically observed effect of CD8(+) cells on bone marrow transplantation. This modification of cell migration by neighboring cells provides broad possibilities for combinatorial effects between cells of different types to influence cell localization.