Seminar

Notch signaling in human hematopoietic development and leukemia

Dr. M.L. Toribio

Multipotent hematopoietic progenitors (HSCs) have the potential to self-renew and to generate all blood cell types. During the last years, our research has focused on the understanding of the role that the Notch signaling pathway plays in those processes. By using in vitro differentiation assays and both constitutive and ligand-dependent Notch1 activation, we showed that Notch1 signaling plays a prominent role in inhibiting non-T cell differentiation (macrophages, dendritic cells, NK cells) of human primitive intrathymic progenitors, while sustaining their expansion in response to unique interleukin 7 (IL-7) derived signals.