Modelling human haematopoietic stem cell commitment ex vivo identifies IL-33 as a regulator of megakaryopoiesis
- 1University of Cambridge
Abstract
Commitment events to specific blood lineages arise from single hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and are influenced by stress, inflammation and disease. However, the understanding of how such events are regulated in human haematopoiesis is limited by the lack of tractable in vitro models. In this study, we introduce a novel Early Progenitor Differentiation (EPD) assay to study the initial lineage commitment of human 49+ HSCs, in a system faithfully recapitulating cell states observed in vivo. Combining single cell -omics approaches and single cell functional assays, we show that IL-33 acts directly on human 49f+ HSCs activating the MAPK pathway to enhance their commitment towards Megakaryocytic-Erythroid-Mast cell Progenitors and subsequently megakaryopoiesis. This occurs without affecting HSC self-renewal via accelerated establishment of chromatin programmes associated with Erythroid and Megakaryocyte and mast cells lineages. Our findings demonstrate the utility of the EPD model to identify molecular regulators of human HSC differentiation and uncover a new role of IL-33 in haematopoiesis.
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BibTeX
@misc{calderbankmay2026modelling,
title = {{Modelling human haematopoietic stem cell commitment ex vivo identifies IL-33 as a regulator of megakaryopoiesis}},
author = {E. F. Calderbank-May and H. P. Bastos and L. Magnani and H. Foster and K. Sham and C. Wu and G. Mantica and C. Johnson and N. Mende and D. Hayler and S. Marra and J. S. Dahlin and C. Ghevaert and E. Laurenti},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.01.748535},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.01.748535v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Modelling human haematopoietic stem cell commitment ex vivo identifies IL-33 as a regulator of megakaryopoiesis
AU - E. F. Calderbank-May
AU - H. P. Bastos
AU - L. Magnani
AU - H. Foster
AU - K. Sham
AU - C. Wu
AU - G. Mantica
AU - C. Johnson
AU - N. Mende
AU - D. Hayler
AU - S. Marra
AU - J. S. Dahlin
AU - C. Ghevaert
AU - E. Laurenti
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/01
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.01.748535
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.01.748535v1
AB - Commitment events to specific blood lineages arise from single hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and are influenced by stress, inflammation and disease. However, the understanding of how such events are regulated in human haematopoiesis is limited by the lack of tractable in vitro models. In this study, we introduce a novel Early Progenitor Differentiation (EPD) assay to study the initial lineage commitment of human 49+ HSCs, in a system faithfully recapitulating cell states observed in vivo. Combining single cell -omics approaches and single cell functional assays, we show that IL-33 acts directly on human 49f+ HSCs activating the MAPK pathway to enhance their commitment towards Megakaryocytic-Erythroid-Mast cell Progenitors and subsequently megakaryopoiesis. This occurs without affecting HSC self-renewal via accelerated establishment of chromatin programmes associated with Erythroid and Megakaryocyte and mast cells lineages. Our findings demonstrate the utility of the EPD model to identify molecular regulators of human HSC differentiation and uncover a new role of IL-33 in haematopoiesis.
ER -