Semaphorin 4A maintains functional diversity of the hematopoietic stem cell pool

Toghani, D., Gupte, S., Zeng, S., Mahammadov, E., Crosse, E., Seyedhassantehrani, N., Burns, C., Gravano, D., Radtke, S., Kiem, H.-P., Rodriguez, S., Carlesso, N., Pradeep, A., Georgiades, A., Lucas, F., Wilson, N. K., Kinston, S. J., Gottgens, B., Zong, L., Beerman, I., Park, B., Janssens, D., Jones, D., Toghani, A., Nerlov, C., Pietras, E. C., Mesnieres, M., Maes, C., Kumanogoh, A., Worzfeld, T., Cheong, J.-G., Josefowicz, S. Z., Kharchenko, P., Scadden, D., Scialdone, A., Spencer, J. A., Silberstein, L.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA · biorxiv

Paper

Abstract

Somatic stem cell pools are comprised of diverse, highly specialized subsets whose individual contribution is critical for the overall regenerative function. In the bone marrow, myeloid-biased HSC (myHSC) are indispensable for replenishment of myeloid cells and platelets during inflammatory response but at the same time, become irreversibly damaged during inflammation and aging. Here, we identify an extrinsic factor, Semaphorin 4A (Sema4A), which non cell-autonomously confers myHSC resilience to inflammatory stress. We show that the absence of Sema4A, myHSC inflammatory hyper-responsiveness in young mice drives excessive myHSC expansion, myeloid bias and profound loss of regenerative function with age. Mechanistically, Sema4A is mainly produced by neutrophils, signals via a cell surface receptor Plexin D1 and safeguards myHSC epigenetic state. Our study shows that by selectively protecting a distinct stem cell subset, an extrinsic factor preserves functional diversity of somatic stem cell pool throughout organismal lifespan.

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Research summary

The paper addresses the role of Semaphorin 4A in maintaining the functional diversity of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and its implications for aging and inflammatory stress. By focusing on an extrinsic factor that helps preserve a specific stem cell subset's functionality throughout the lifespan, it touches on mechanisms that could be relevant to longevity research. However, while the findings are solid and contribute to our understanding of stem cell resilience, they do not present a groundbreaking advance or a direct solution to the root causes of aging, limiting their overall impact.

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