A New Way to Boost Stem Cells

Researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston report finding a new way to increase stem cells in blood.

The study suggests a possible treatment to help patients who undergo chemotherapy or bone marrow transplant for leukemia and other cancers recover their immune function more quickly.

The discovery, made possible through high-volume drug screening in zebrafish, marks the first time stem-cell production has been induced by a small-molecule drug, according to senior author Dr. Leonard Zon, of the Children’s Hospital Boston Stem Cell Program and Division of Hematology/Oncology.

Currently, patients undergoing bone marrow transplant must wait for marrow from a matched donor to replenish their stem cells and reproduce the full array of blood cell types.

Knowing that two genes, RUNX1 and CMYB, are required for blood stem cells to develop in vertebrate embryos, the researchers looked for compounds that altered the activation of these genes.

A variety of experiments confirmed that prostaglandins, particularly dmPGE2, promote blood stem cell formation, according to the study published in Nature.