Stem Cell Survival Strategy Is Key to Blood and Immune System Health

Stem cells of the aging bone marrow recycle their own molecules to survive and keep replenishing the blood and immune systems as the body ages, researchers at UC San Francisco (UCSF) have discovered.

The recycling process, known as autophagy, or self-eating, involves reusing molecules and the chemical energy obtained from these molecules to withstand the killing effect of metabolic stress that intensifies as the body ages.

Emmanuelle Passegu, PhD

The discovery, reported online Feb. 6 in the journal Nature, showed that autophagy allows stem cells to avoid the alternative response to stress, which is programmed cellular suicide, in which cells that arent up to snuff kill themselves for the greater good.

While this trick of autophagy may help delay the onset of anemia, immune-system failure and other maladies that occur with age, as a survival strategy it is a bit of a compromise, said the senior author of the study, Emmanuelle Passegu, PhD, of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF.

Autophagy might increase cancer risk, she said, by allowing old stem cells to survive despite having accumulated risky mutations over a lifetime.

Almost all blood malignancies start in the stem cell niche, said Passegu. Many of the deadliest and most prevalent blood cancers for example, acute myelogenous leukemia appear to arise from damaged stem cells and become increasingly common with age.

Trying to keep old stem cells of the blood and immune system functioning well without raising cancer risks is one of the next big challenges in biomedical research, she said.

Our next step is to look within the stem cells to see what goes wrong as they begin to perform poorly with age.

By allowing old stem cells to survive despite having accumulated risky mutations over a lifetime, a cellular process called autophagy might increase risk for blood cancers, including leukemias. Credit: Vashi Donsk

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Stem Cell Survival Strategy Is Key to Blood and Immune System Health