State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin 300020, China.
CAMS Center for Stem Cell Medicine, PUMC Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Tianjin 300020, China.
Protein Cell. 2024 Nov 1;15(11):840-857. doi: 10.1093/procel/pwae022.
The maintenance of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is a complex process involving numerous cell-extrinsic and -intrinsic regulators. The first member of the cyclin-dependent kinase family of inhibitors to be identified, p21, has been reported to perform a wide range of critical biological functions, including cell cycle regulation, transcription, differentiation, and so on. Given the previous inconsistent results regarding the functions of p21 in HSCs in a p21-knockout mouse model, we employed p21-tdTomato (tdT) mice to further elucidate its role in HSCs during homeostasis. The results showed that p21-tdT+ HSCs exhibited increased self-renewal capacity compared to p21-tdT- HSCs. Zbtb18, a transcriptional repressor, was upregulated in p21-tdT+ HSCs, and its knockdown significantly impaired the reconstitution capability of HSCs. Furthermore, p21 interacted with ZBTB18 to co-repress the expression of cKit in HSCs and thus regulated the self-renewal of HSCs. Our data provide novel insights into the physiological role and mechanisms of p21 in HSCs during homeostasis independent of its conventional role as a cell cycle inhibitor.
造血干细胞(HSCs)的维持是一个复杂的过程,涉及许多细胞外和细胞内的调节因子。p21 是第一个被鉴定的细胞周期蛋白依赖性激酶家族抑制剂,据报道,它具有广泛的关键生物学功能,包括细胞周期调控、转录、分化等。鉴于之前在 p21 敲除小鼠模型中 p21 在 HSCs 中的功能存在不一致的结果,我们使用了 p21-tdTomato(tdT)小鼠来进一步阐明其在 HSCs 稳态中的作用。结果表明,与 p21-tdT- HSCs 相比,p21-tdT+ HSCs 表现出更高的自我更新能力。转录抑制因子 Zbtb18 在 p21-tdT+ HSCs 中上调,其敲低显著损害了 HSCs 的重建能力。此外,p21 与 ZBTB18 相互作用,共同抑制 HSCs 中 cKit 的表达,从而调节 HSCs 的自我更新。我们的数据提供了新的见解,即 p21 在 HSCs 稳态中的生理作用和机制独立于其作为细胞周期抑制剂的传统作用。