Scientists from the Cincinnati Children’s Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute conducted research with findings showing that obesity causes harmful and durable changes to the hematopoietic stems cell compartment. The results of this study highlighting the pernicious effects of obesity on long term health of hematopoietic stem cells, which are the blood making stem cells are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
PhD. Damien Reynaud says that there is an understanding that blood stem cell compartment is made up of numerous cell subsets, keeping it healthy is essential to our well being, which includes maintaining the diverse pool of blood making stem cells the body needs to produce bloods cells to function properly.
The research shows that environmental stresses and age can lessen the health diversity of cells in our blood making machinery, which includes possibly promoting preleukemic fates, and skewing blood cell formation towards myeloid cells according to Reynaud.
Findings of this study show that the cellular architecture of hematopoietic stem cell compartments are altered by stresses related to obesity decreasing its long term functional fitness. Testing conducted in model obese mice show that these effects are progressive, with some harmful manifestations remaining even after the normalization of the weight of the mice using dietary controls.
Mechanistically the team reports that the alterations of the body’s blood making system appears to be associated with the over-expression of a transcription factor named Gfi1. Gfi1 is a regulatory gene that instructs other genes on what to do. This research shows that within the body the oxidative stress caused by obesity drives the over-expression. When this process happens it produces a lasting alteration of the hematopoietic stem cell compartment and the result is that molecular mayhem may follow. The team say that this study provides an opportunity to investigate how lifestyle choices can impact blood formation and contribute to the risks of developing blood cancer.
Hematopoietic stem cells are used in treating leukemia and other blood diseases. This study raises questions and concerns about the use of these cells isolated from obese people in therapeutic transplant procedures. Reynaud explains that not much is known about how obesity can affect the quality of the cells in marrow donors, and that there is need for a more precise understanding of the molecular alterations caused by obesity to have a better understanding of the potential risks that may be associated with it for the therapeutic use of stem cells isolated from obese donors.
