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Contribution of hematopoietic stem cells to skeletal muscle

Abstract

Cells from adult bone marrow participate in the regeneration of damaged skeletal myofibers. However, the relationship of these cells with the various hematopoietic and nonhematopoietic cell types found in bone marrow is still unclear. Here we show that the progeny of a single cell can both reconstitute the hematopoietic system and contribute to muscle regeneration. Integration of bone marrow cells into myofibers occurs spontaneously at low frequency and increases with muscle damage. Thus, classically defined single hematopoietic stem cells can give rise to both blood and muscle.

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Figure 1: Generation of mice reconstituted by a single SPKLS cell.
Figure 2: Detection of spontaneously arising myofibers in the panniculus carnosus muscle.
Figure 3: Identification of bone marrow–derived myofibers in single cell–reconstituted animals.
Figure 4: Bone marrow–derived myofibers in secondary recipients.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Johnson for help with flow cytometry, and R. Doyonnas, K. McNagny and M. Labarge for useful comments. T.R.B. was supported by a Lutheran Brotherhood Fellowship and by National Institutes of Health predoctoral training grant GM07149. H.M.B. was supported by NIH grants HD18179, HL65572, AG09521 and AG2096l, and by Ellison Foundation grant AG-SS-0817. F.M.V.R. is supported by a Canada Research Chair in Regenerative Medicine. This work was supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research grant MOP-53332 and from the Networks of Centres of Excellence–Stem Cell Network Plasticity Project funding to F.M.V.R.

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Correspondence to Fabio M V Rossi.

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Corbel, S., Lee, A., Yi, L. et al. Contribution of hematopoietic stem cells to skeletal muscle. Nat Med 9, 1528–1532 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm959

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