Photo by Ian Johnston
The availability of vitamin D during embryonic development can affect hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs), according to research published in Cell Reports.
Experiments with zebrafish embryos suggested that vitamin D acts directly on HSPCs to increase proliferation.
Similarly, in HSPCs from human umbilical cords, treatment with vitamin D enhanced hematopoietic colony numbers.
Researchers therefore theorized that vitamin D supplementation might be useful for HSPC expansion prior to transplant.
“We clearly showed that not getting enough vitamin D can alter how blood stem cells are formed,” said study author Trista North, PhD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
“Vitamin D was having a direct response on the blood stem cells, and it changed what those cells did in terms of multiplying and staying alive.”
The researchers found, in both human and zebrafish tissue, that 1,25(OH)D3 (active vitamin D3) had an impact on HSPC production and function.
Investigation into the mechanism revealed that CXCL8-CXCR1/2 signaling functions downstream of 1,25(OH)D3-mediated vitamin D receptor stimulation to directly regulate HSPC production and expansion.
“What was surprising was that vitamin D is having an impact so early,” Dr North said. “We really only thought about vitamin D in terms of bone development and maintenance, but we clearly show that, whether they were zebrafish or human blood stem cells, they can respond directly to the nutrient.”
One caveat is the researchers did face difficulty testing the response in mice, as the animals don’t have the same vitamin D inflammatory targets observed in zebrafish and humans.
Additionally, the team didn’t know the vitamin D levels in the umbilical cord blood samples they tested, which may have influenced the outcome of their analysis.
As a next step, Dr North and her colleagues hope to test cord blood samples for which they know the vitamin D status to see if umbilical cords with healthy levels respond better or worse to stimulation than cords from vitamin-D-deficient donors.
