Engraftment: Homing and Use of Genetic Markers

Abstract

Homing refers to the stem cells’ innate ability to travel to the right place in the body—the bone marrow—suited for making blood. The term “engraftment” means that the stem cells have begun their work; they are functioning properly within the marrow by producing various kinds of blood cells. Not only that bone marrow is recruited with fresh pool of concentrated stem cells, but it is also being gradually repopulated by those cells that emerge through differentiation of transplanted stem cells. Experimental evidence suggests that manipulated stem cells may lose some of their homing and engraftment abilities. If this evidence is true for humans as well, a troubling paradox may arise: The very success of an umbilical cord blood transplant could be undermined by the manipulations performed on stem cells—manipulations intended to increase their healing properties, not decrease or eliminate them. Research needs to clarify this. Work of this kind, at the University of Minnesota, is crucial to the success of stem cell expansion [1].

Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.

– Yoda