G-CSF Induced Expansion and Mobilization of Hematopoietic Stem Cells Is Altered by the Matrix Protein Osteopontin.

Stem cells reside in a physical microenvironment or niche where a balance of signals controls their proliferation, differentiation and death. Components of the specialized microenvironment have generally been defined in terms of cells and signaling pathways affecting stem cell maintenance or expansion. We have defined a role for a matrix glycoprotein that provides a constraining function on hematopoietic stem cells within the bone marrow microenvironment. Osteopontin (OPN) is an abundant glycoprotein in bone that modifies primitive hematopoietic cell number and function in a stem cell non-autonomous manner. Here we analyzed the role of OPN for regulating stem cell mobilization and pool size in times of G-CSF induced marrow stress, a context close to the clinical setting of stem cell mobilization not well understood so far. Bone marrow stromal cells show an enhanced expression of OPN under stimulation with G-CSF, which prompted us to analyze the role of OPN in G-CSF mediated activation of the stem cell niche. First we treated OPN deficient mice and their wild-type littermates with G-CSF for 5 days. We could observe a significant increased stem cell fraction in the peripheral blood and in the bone marrow in the absence of OPN in comparison to the wild-type controls. To evaluate, if this effect is stroma dependent, we first transplanted wild-type bone marrow into wild-type or OPN-deficient recipients. 6 weeks after transplantation we treated these mice with G-CSF for 5 days and analyzed the peripheral blood and the bone marrow for the contents of primitive hematopoietic cells. Here we could detect a significantly increased stem cell fraction in peripheral blood and bone marrow of the OPN^−/− recipients in comparison to wild type controls detected by FACS and functional in vitro stem cell assays. We then transplanted the stressed bone marrow in a competitive repopulation assay into wild-type recipients and observed a significant increase of CD45.2 cells from OPN^−/− recipient mice up to 12 weeks after transplantation in comparison to wild-type controls, demonstrating an enhanced G-CSF induced expansion of hematopioetic stem cells in the OPN-deficient stem cell niche. Furthermore, we could observe an enhanced expression of Angiopoietin and N-Cadherin in OPN-deficient bone marrow stromal cells after stimulation with G-CSF in comparison to wild-type controls, supporting the stroma dependent expansion of stem cells in the absence of OPN in the G-CSF stimulated stem cell niche. Therefore, OPN is a restricting element of the stem cell niche limiting the size of the stem cell pool and may provide a dynamic mechanism by which excess stem cell expansion is prevented during times of niche stimulation. These findings may provide new insight into expansion and mobilization of hematopoietic stem cells by G-CSF mediated by components of the stem cell niche.