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World J Stem Cells. Jun 26, 2021; 13(6): 594-604
Published online Jun 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i6.594
Growing and aging of hematopoietic stem cells
Ion Udroiu, Antonella Sgura
Ion Udroiu, Antonella Sgura, Department of Science, Roma Tre University, Rome 00146, Italy
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception, literature review and analysis, manuscript drafting, critical revision, and editing, and approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest exist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ion Udroiu, PhD, Research Fellow, Department of Science, Roma Tre University, Viale G. Marconi 446, Rome 00146, Italy. ion.udroiu@uniroma3.it
Received: November 20, 2020
Peer-review started: November 20, 2020
First decision: December 21, 2020
Revised: December 22, 2020
Accepted: February 1, 2021
Article in press: February 1, 2021
Published online: June 26, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: During ontogeny, hematopoietic stem cells undergo a fetal and neonatal phase of rapid expansion. The kinetics of this growth are mirrored by the rates of telomere shortening in leukocytes. During adulthood, hematopoietic stem cells undergo a very small number of cell divisions. Nonetheless, they are subjected to aging, eventually reducing their potential to produce differentiated progeny.