A technique for expanding hematopoietic stem cell numbers could have many clinical applications, including improving bone marrow transplantation and recovery from myelotoxic chemotherapy. In this report, Heather Himburg et al. suggest a new strategy to accomplish this by identifying pleiotrophin, a growth factor not previously known to affect hematopoiesis, as an inducer of both mouse and human hematopoietic stem cell expansion ex vivo and of hematopoietic stem cell regeneration in vivo.
- Heather A Himburg
- Garrett G Muramoto
- John P Chute
