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GFI1 proteins orchestrate the emergence of haematopoietic stem cells through recruitment of LSD1.


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Authors

Thambyrajah, Roshana 
Mazan, Milena 
Patel, Rahima 
Stefanska, Monika 

Abstract

In vertebrates, the first haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) with multi-lineage and long-term repopulating potential arise in the AGM (aorta-gonad-mesonephros) region. These HSCs are generated from a rare and transient subset of endothelial cells, called haemogenic endothelium (HE), through an endothelial-to-haematopoietic transition (EHT). Here, we establish the absolute requirement of the transcriptional repressors GFI1 and GFI1B (growth factor independence 1 and 1B) in this unique trans-differentiation process. We first demonstrate that Gfi1 expression specifically defines the rare population of HE that generates emerging HSCs. We further establish that in the absence of GFI1 proteins, HSCs and haematopoietic progenitor cells are not produced in the AGM, revealing the critical requirement for GFI1 proteins in intra-embryonic EHT. Finally, we demonstrate that GFI1 proteins recruit the chromatin-modifying protein LSD1, a member of the CoREST repressive complex, to epigenetically silence the endothelial program in HE and allow the emergence of blood cells.

Description

Keywords

Animals, Aorta, Cell Differentiation, DNA-Binding Proteins, Embryo, Mammalian, Hemangioblasts, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Histone Demethylases, Mice, Transcription Factors

Journal Title

Nat Cell Biol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1465-7392
1476-4679

Volume Title

18

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research (12029)
Wellcome Trust (097922/Z/11/Z)
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_12009)
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (7001-12)
Cancer Research Uk (None)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/I00050X/1)
Wellcome Trust (097922/Z/11/B)
We thank the staff at the Advanced Imaging, animal facility, Molecular Biology Core facilities and Flow Cytometry of CRUK Manchester Institute for technical support and Michael Lie-A-Ling and Elli Marinopoulou for initiating the DamID-PIP bioinformatics project. We thank members of the Stem Cell Biology group, the Stem Cell Haematopoiesis groups and Martin Gering for valuable advice and critical reading of the manuscript. Work in our laboratory is supported by the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Foundation (LLR), Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). SC is the recipient of an MRC senior fellowship (MR/J009202/1).