Source: University of California - Los Angeles
Date: December 3, 2008
Summary:
Stem cell researchers at UCLA have proven definitively that blood stem cells are made during mid-gestational embryonic development by endothelial cells, the cells that line the inside of blood vessels. While the anatomic location in the embryo where blood stem cells originate has been well documented, the cell type from which they spring was less understood. The UCLA finding, published in the Dec. 4, 2008 issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, puts to rest a long-standing controversy over whether blood stem cells were created, or born, in the endothelium or originated from another cell type in a nearby location.
