The effects of maturation and aging on hematopoietic progenitor cells, blood and bone marrow from second-and thirdtrimester fetal, newborn, infant, adult, and aged rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were analyzed. CD34 ϩ cells were immunoselected and stained with propidium iodide for cell cycle analysis. Blood and bone marrow mononuclear cells were plated in methylcellulose, and erythroid and myeloid progenitors were grown and counted. A higher frequency of circulating CD34 Somatic cells possess a limited ability for self-renewal, as described in the study of cellular aging by Hayflick (1). This intrinsic capability or "Hayflick limit" of cell division, also described as self-renewal potential and proliferation of somatic cells, is believed to decline in chronologically older cells (2). Unlike somatic cells, CD34ϩ hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are a long-lived population that can sustain blood cell production for the lifetime of an individual. A balance among selfrenewal, proliferation, differentiation, and migration of pluripotent HSCs is the hallmark of hematopoiesis. For example, Andrews et al. (3) showed that the CD34 ϩ population, which contains HSCs, is responsible for hematopoietic reconstitution of lethally irradiated baboons, whereas others have shown that a small number of HSCs from the bone marrow of C57BL/6 mice can repopulate lymphohematopoietic tissues of irradiated animals (4,5). However, in mouse studies, a greater quantity of HSCs was required for reconstitution when donor HSCs were obtained from older versus younger mice. In similar studies, HSCs that were obtained from fetal liver have shown greater long-term repopulating capability when compared with HSCs from adult marrow. HSCs from DBA/2, BALB/c, and CBA/ CaH-T6 mice indicate a significant functional decline with advancing age (6 -11), and transplant studies suggest that murine HSCs from a single donor can be serially transplanted only to five to seven recipients (12-14). These observations suggest that HSCs may possess finite self-renewal capabilities and are subject to the Hayflick limit.A recent stochastic study on the replication, apoptosis, and differentiation of HSCs has revealed that mouse, cat, and nonhuman primate HSCs are biologically different in their intrinsic capabilities and that findings in the mouse may not represent in vivo behavior of HSCs in large animals or humans (15). Other studies in baboons and cats concur with this observation (6,16 -18