Role of hepatocyte growth factor in hemopoiesis

Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) is a polypeptide that stimulates proliferation, motility, and morphogenesis of various cells, particularly epithelial cells. There is considerable evidence that HGF is a regulator in hemopoiesis not only in mice but also in humans. In mice, HGF and c-met (its receptor) mRNA are coexpressed in the fetal liver in the middle and late stages, when hemopoiesis is most active. HGF and c-met mRNA are also expressed in the stromal cells of both fetal liver and bone marrow. Human HGF (2 to 20 ng/ml) enhances colony-forming units in culture (CFU-C) counts and cobblestone colony counts in the long-term cultures of the fetal liver and bone marrow, although HGF has no effect on freshly isolated bone marrow or fetal liver cells in the CFU-C assay. However, when the bone marrow or fetal liver cells are cocultured with HGF in the presence of IL-3, CFU-C counts increase. In humans, it has also been shown that HGF in the presence of erythropoietin induces the formation of erythroid burst-forming unit (BFU-E) colonies from CD34+ cells purified from the bone marrow, peripheral blood, or cord blood. This review discusses the role of HGF as a regulator in hemopoiesis.