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Erythropoiesis is the process by which red blood cells (erythrocytes) are produced. During human foetal development, erythropoiesis first occurs in the yolk sac, then in the foetal liver and then, in the third trimester and after birth, in the bone marrow.
Drivers of persistent symptoms after acute COVID-19 remain largely unknown. Alterations in immune function, iron homeostasis and dysregulated erythropoiesis are described as treatable correlates of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19.
Horitani, Chavkin et al. report that the loss of the Y chromosome in macrophages from failing human hearts correlates with cardiac fibroblast activation and that the deficiency of a single Y chromosome gene, Uty, triggers an epigenetic rewiring in macrophages toward a profibrotic phenotype and increases cardiac fibrosis and dysfunction that can be prevented by TGFβ-neutralizing antibodies.
Smith and colleagues find that a multivariate signature of unresolved inflammation and altered iron homeostasis detected beyond 2 weeks following acute COVID-19 onset was the strongest early differentiator of those who report long COVID symptoms at 3–10 months.
The cues guiding hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to regenerate specific cell types lost due to injury remain elusive. This study shows that iron instructs erythroid differentiation of HSCs during anemia in a Tet2-dependent manner.
Bioactive small molecules mediate transcription factor functions to control cellular processes. Here, Liao et al. discover that a GATA1-regulated metabolic enzyme controls ceramide homeostasis to commission vital cytokine signaling for erythropoiesis.
Individuals with advanced cancers can develop thrombocytosis and anemia. Huang and colleagues show that in tumor-bearing individuals, increased circulating kynurenine results in megakaryocyte differentiation from megakaryocytic–erythroid progenitor cells by activating the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, resulting in increased expression of RUNX1.
Drivers of persistent symptoms after acute COVID-19 remain largely unknown. Alterations in immune function, iron homeostasis and dysregulated erythropoiesis are described as treatable correlates of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19.
DARLIN enables the generation of a massive diversity of barcodes for in vivo lineage tracing and the combination with single-cell multi-omics measurements.
Wattrus et al. report a role for embryonic macrophages in zebrafish in promoting the death or proliferation of haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), which regulates HSC clonality into adulthood.