Longevity & AgingCholine Fuels Human Blood Stem Cell Stemness and Declines With Age and Leukemia
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute and ETH Zürich performed the first comprehensive metabolome, lipidome, and transcriptome profiling of human bone marrow haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs). Using newly optimized low-input workflows requiring as few as 3,000–5,000 cells, they detected up to 193 metabolites and lipids across 86 human bone marrow samples. They found that choline levels are elevated in young healthy HSPCs compared to downstream progenitors, decline significantly with aging, and decrease even further in acute myeloid leukemia. Critically, supplementing HSPCs with choline enhanced lipid production and stemness properties, demonstrating choline's functional role in maintaining blood stem cell identity and pointing to a potential therapeutic lever for improving stem cell-based therapies.
