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Clonal dynamics of haematopoiesis across the human lifespan
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Abstract
Age-related change in human haematopoiesis causes reduced regenerative capacity 1 , cytopenias 2 , immune dysfunction 3 and increased risk of blood cancer 4–6 , but the reason for such abrupt functional decline after 70 years of age remains unclear. Here we sequenced 3,579 genomes from single cell-derived colonies of haematopoietic cells across 10 human subjects from 0 to 81 years of age. Haematopoietic stem cells or multipotent progenitors (HSC/MPPs) accumulated a mean of 17 mutations per year after birth and lost 30 base pairs per year of telomere length. Haematopoiesis in adults less than 65 years of age was massively polyclonal, with high clonal diversity and a stable population of 20,000–200,000 HSC/MPPs contributing evenly to blood production. By contrast, haematopoiesis in individuals aged over 75 showed profoundly decreased clonal diversity. In each of the older subjects, 30–60% of haematopoiesis was accounted for by 12–18 independent clones, each contributing 1–34% of blood production. Most clones had begun their expansion before the subject was 40 years old, but only 22% had known driver mutations. Genome-wide selection analysis estimated that between 1 in 34 and 1 in 12 non-synonymous mutations were drivers, accruing at constant rates throughout life, affecting more genes than identified in blood cancers. Loss of the Y chromosome conferred selective benefits in males. Simulations of haematopoiesis, with constant stem cell population size and constant acquisition of driver mutations conferring moderate fitness benefits, entirely explained the abrupt change in clonal structure in the elderly. Rapidly decreasing clonal diversity is a universal feature of haematopoiesis in aged humans, underpinned by pervasive positive selection acting on many more genes than currently identified.
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“Somatic mutations accumulate in HSCs linearly over time, with approximately 14−18 SNVs and 0.65–0.77 indels acquired in each HSC per year26–28.”
From Clonal selection of hematopoietic stem cells after gene therapy for sickle cell disease (2023) · cites this paper as [28]
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“The pre-GT phylogenetic trees of all patients were highly polyclonal, similar to phylogenies from young healthy individuals, and in contrast to the patterns observed in elderly patients or those with a hematological malignancy28,29.”
From Clonal selection of hematopoietic stem cells after gene therapy for sickle cell disease (2023) · cites this paper as [28]
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“While it is formally possible that surviving clones may have expanded neutrally after the population bottleneck induced by the GT process, it is unlikely that this can fully explain these expansions, as we do not see the same trajectories for non-synonymous and intronic mutations called using the same strategy and some of the expansions observed are highly atypical of neutral expansions (>100-fold”
From Clonal selection of hematopoietic stem cells after gene therapy for sickle cell disease (2023) · cites this paper as [55]
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“other studies have not attempted to correct for in vitro mutations, including the reference data from healthy individuals used as comparison24,28”
From Clonal selection of hematopoietic stem cells after gene therapy for sickle cell disease (2023) · cites this paper as [28]
In the citing paper
“Current approaches used to track stem cell clones through differentiation require genetic engineering1,2 or rely on sparse somatic DNA variants3,4, which limits their wide application.”
From Clonal tracing with somatic epimutations reveals dynamics of blood ageing (2025) · cites this paper as [3]
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Clonal selection of hematopoietic stem cells after gene therapy for sickle cell disease
Spencer Chapman, M., Cull, A. H., Ciuculescu, M. F., Esrick, E. B., Mitchell, E., Jung, H., O’Neill, L., Roberts, K., Fabre, M. A., Williams, N., et al. (2023) · Nature Medicine · doi:10.1038/s41591-023-02636-6 · Cited by 67
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Metadata
- Authors
- Mitchell, E., Spencer Chapman, M., Williams, N., Dawson, K. J., Mende, N., Calderbank, E. F., Jung, H., Mitchell, T., Coorens, T. H. H., Spencer, D. H., Machado, H., Lee-Six, H., Davies, M., Hayler, D., Fabre, M. A., Mahbubani, K., Abascal, F., Cagan, A., Vassiliou, G. S., Baxter, J., Martincorena, I., Stratton, M. R., Kent, D. G., Chatterjee, K., Parsy, K. S., Green, A. R., Nangalia, J., Laurenti, E., & Campbell, P. J.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2022-06-01
- Volume
- 606
- Issue
- 7913
- Pages
- 343-350
- ISSN
- 0028-0836
- 1476-4687
- PMC
- PMC9177428
- Cited by
- 544
- References
- 30
- Language
- en
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- Mitchell, E., Spencer Chapman, M., Williams, N., Dawson, K. J., Mende, N., Calderbank, E. F., Jung, H., Mitchell, T., Coorens, T. H. H., Spencer, D. H., Machado, H., Lee-Six, H., Davies, M., Hayler, D., Fabre, M. A., Mahbubani, K., Abascal, F., Cagan, A., Vassiliou, G. S., . . . Campbell, P. J. (2022). Clonal dynamics of haematopoiesis across the human lifespan. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04786-y