Genetic control of the frequency of hematopoietic stem cells in mice: mapping of a candidate locus to chromosome 1.

The genetic elements that govern the differentiation and proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells remain to be defined. We describe here marked strain-specific differences in the frequency of long-term culture-initiating cells (LTC-IC) in the bone marrow of different strains of mice. Mice of C57Bl/6 background showed the lowest levels of stem cells in marrow, averaging 2.4 +/- .06 LTC-IC/10(5) cells, BALB/c is intermediate (9.1 +/- 4.2/10(5) cells), and DBA/2 mice contained a 11-fold higher frequency of LTC-IC (28.1 +/- 16.5/10(5) cells) than C57Bl/6 mice. The genetic factors affecting the size of the stem cell pool were analyzed in the C57Bl/6 X DBA/2 recombinant inbred strains; LTC-IC frequencies ranged widely, indicating that stem cell frequencies are controlled by multiple genes. Quantitative trait linkage analysis suggested that two loci that have major quantitative effects are located on chromosome 1 near Adprp and Acrg, respectively. The mapping of the locus near Adprp was confirmed by finding an elevated stem cell frequency in B6.C-H25, a C57Bl/6 congenic strain that carries a portion of chromosome 1 derived from BALB/c mice. We have named this gene Scfr1 (stem cell frequency regulator 1). The allelic forms of this gene may be an important predictor of stem cell number and thus would be useful for evaluating cell sources in clinical stem cell transplantation.