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How do bone marrow stem cells make new blood cells?
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stem cell
Stem cells of neural and hematopoietic origin have tremendous potential in the development of therapies for certain diseases, such as diabetes and Parkinson disease. Neural stem cells occur in the spinal cord and in specific regions of the brain, and hematopoietic stem cells occur in the blood and bone marrow.
In the adult body, the process of blood cell formation, known as hematopoiesis, occurs primarily within the bone marrow. This continuous process relies on primitive stem cells that reside in specialized niches, where they are supported by surrounding cells that secrete essential survival and activation signals.12
The production of new blood cells follows a series of complex transformations:
- Commitment: Primitive hematopoietic stem cells divide and differentiate into precursor cells, which are committed to becoming a specific type of blood cell, such as red cells, phagocytic cells, megakaryocytes, or lymphocytes.1
- Regulation: This differentiation is governed by colony-stimulating factors (CSFs), which are hormonal glycoproteins that act as signals from body tissues to the marrow. For example, the master factor interleukin-3 stimulates the most ancestral stem cells, while specific factors like erythropoietin trigger the maturation of red blood cells.1
- Release: Once mature, these new blood cells enter the general circulation by penetrating the walls of sinusoids, which are venous sacs within the marrow.1