ESAM is a novel human hematopoietic stem cell marker associated with a subset of human leukemias

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26461446
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Hematology
• Research Institution: National Cardiovascular Center Research Institute (2016); Osaka University (2014-2015)
• Principal Investigator: Ishibashi Tomohiko 国立研究開発法人国立循環器病研究センター, 研究所, 上級研究員 (30722285)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 造血幹細胞

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Reliable markers are essential to increase our understanding of the biological features of human hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). We found that endothelial cell-selective adhesion molecule (ESAM) can be used to purify human HSCs from all the currently available sources (adult bone marrow [BM], mobilized peripheral blood, and cord blood [CB]). Multipotent colony-forming units and long-term hematopoietic-reconstituting cells in immunodeficient mice were found exclusively in the ESAM(High) fraction of CD34+CD38- cells. The CD34+CD38- fraction of CB contained cells exhibiting extremely high expression of ESAM; these cells are likely to be related to the endothelial lineage. High ESAM expression was observed in some primary acute myeloid leukemia cells. Furthermore, KG-1a myeloid leukemia cells switched from ESAM negative to ESAM positive with repeated leukemia reconstitution in vivo. Thus, ESAM is a useful marker for studying both human HSCs and leukemia cells.

Free Research Field

血液内科学