Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are a group of multipotent hematopoietic progenitor cells that sustain life in a normal physiological function. However, the epigenetic regulation of the development of HSCs, for example, the microRNA, has not been well understood.

The Hematopoiesis and Cardiovascular Development Group led by Prof. Feng Liu utilized two model systems including zebrafish and mouse, and found that mir-142-3p is specifically expressed in HSCs. In zebrafish, knockdown of mir-142-3p leads to the decrease of HSCs and T cells. By using genetic, bioinformatics, cellular and molecular biological tools, they revealed that mir-142-3p is required for the formation and differentiation of HSCs by targeting the interferon regulatory factor irf7 and regulates irf7-mediated Gcsf-NO inflammation signaling. In mouse, mir-142a-3p also negatively regulates irf7 and is involved in the formation and differentiation of HSCs. These findings unveil the evolutionally conserved roles of miR-142-3p in HSC development, providing new insights into microRNA modulation of HSCs and may provide new clues for the in vitro expansion of therapeutic HSCs.

This study was published online in the Cell Research journal on Oct 29, 2013. This research was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (2010CB945302, 2011CB943904), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31271570), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA01010110).

website：http://www.nature.com/cr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/cr2013145a.html