[Study of hematopoietic stem cell pool maintenance in successive transplantations using a quantitative method of...

The ability of transplantable hemopoietic stem cells (HSC) to maintain their pool was studied using successive bone marrow transplantations with quantitative evaluation of hemopoiesis restoring units (HRU) in each transfer. The number of injected HRU increased (3.6-48.6--fold) upon each transfer; however, the normal level could not be attained. The ability fo HRU for further multiplication was exhausted after five transfers. HRU lost totipotentiality after four transfers. The data obtained support the concertion of Kay (1965) that HSC department is a pool of heterogeneous cells, and the property of "stemness" is inversely related to the number of divisions of ancestral cells. Transplantation, being a proliferative stress for the dormant HSCs, thus lowers the stem potential of the whole pool. The experimental data suggest that while dividing stem cell does not have a choice to self-renew or to differentiate into maturing cells, but it really differentiates into HSCs of lower rank.