Elucidating the cell metabolic heterogeneity during hematopoietic lineage differentiation based on Met-Flow

Cell metabolism is critically involved in the differentiation of the hematopoietic lineage and, therefore, has attracted the attention of researchers, however, in-depth studies on cellular metabolic activity of hematopoietic cells (HCs) require attention. This investigation compared the metabolic activity of HCs at critical lineage differentiation stages, including hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs), and differentiated blood cells, via multiple methods and basic reference values. Primary metabolic processes of HCs, including anabolism, catabolism, phosphate, and glucose metabolism, were analyzed, and their maps were drawn. The data revealed that GLUT1 expression in HSCs was substantially higher than in all progenitor cells and mature myeloid blood cells, indicating their strong glucose uptake capacity. In myeloid differentiation, the ACAC expression of HPC2 was markedly higher than in neutrophils and monocytes. The ACAC, ASS1, ATP5A, and PRDX2 of HPC2 expression in lymphoid differentiation was substantially greater than in B and Natural-killer cells. CLP, CMP, GMP, MEP, and HPC1 inherit increased glucose uptake stem cell properties. In lymphocyte subsets, the expression of ACAC, ASS1, ATP5A, CPT1A, and PRDX2 in CD4⁺ T subgroups (naive and memory CD4⁺ T and nT_reg) were elevated than in B subgroups (pro-, pre-, immature and mature Bs) and CD8⁺ T subgroups. Furthermore, leukemia stem cells (LSCs) had increased levels of ACAC, CPT1A, G6PD, IDH2, and PRDX2 than leukemia cells, indicating a stronger metabolic capacity of LSCs than differentiated leukemia cells.