Hemopoietic regulators

The production and maturation of blood cells from the eight major blood cell lineages is a complex and continuous process, which is largely controlled by specific glycoprotein hemopoietic regulators. These regulators also control the functional activity of the blood cells through eliciting a diverse set of intracellular responses initiated by a regulator-specific membrane receptor. Twenty of these regulators have now been characterized, and their mass production has led to four already being licensed for clinical use in disease states involving subnormal blood cell formation.