The role of BMP signalling in HSC ontogeny

The haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) is found in the adult human bone marrow, where it gives rise to all the circulating blood cells throughout adulthood. Understanding the signalling events that programme these cells during development will improve HSC in vitro culture, their generation from embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells, and their potential therapeutic application. HSCs bud from the floor of the dorsal aorta and seed the bone marrow via circulation. The precursors to the dorsal aorta and HSCs are called haemangioblasts, which are found in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm in Xenopus. The knowledge of the location of these precursors allows their programming to be studied in detail during embryonic development. A key pathway implicated in the programming of HSCs is the BMP signalling pathway. Here, using both a small molecule inhibitor and a transgenic Xenopus line, BMP signalling has been inhibited post-gastrulation without perturbing the gross morphology of the embryo. This has shown that BMP signalling is required for HSC programming in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm via the expression of a critical haematopoietic transcription factor, gata2. Morpholino knockdown of evi3has revealed it to be essential for HSC programming in the dorsal lateral plate mesoderm, where it is required for the expression of gata2. Furthermore, as evi3 is known to bind to the active BMP signalling complex, and as evi3 knockdown phenocopies post-gastrulation BMP inhibition, evi3 appears to be required for BMP signalling to initiate gata2 expression in the DLP. Taken together, the findings presented here demonstrate an essential post-gastrulation role of BMP signalling and Evi3 for programming HSCs in Xenopus.