Single Cell Resolution Spatial Mapping of Human Hematopoiesis Reveals Aging-Associated Topographic Remodeling

Abstract

The spatial anatomy of hematopoiesis in bone marrow has been extensively studied in mice and other preclinical models but technical challenges have precluded a commensurate exploration in humans. Institutional pathology archives contain many thousands of paraffinized bone marrow core biopsy tissue specimens, providing a rich resource for studying the intact human bone marrow topography in a variety of physiologic states. Thus, we developed an end-to-end pipeline involving multiparameter whole tissue staining, in situ imaging at single cell resolution, and AI-based digital image analysis, and then applied it to a cohort of disease-free samples to survey alterations in the hematopoietic topography associated with aging. Our data indicate heterogeneity in marrow adipose tissue (MAT) content within each age group, and an inverse correlation between MAT content and proportions of early myeloid and erythroid precursors, irrespective of age. We identify consistent endosteal and perivascular positioning of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) with medullary localization of more differentiated elements and, importantly, uncover new evidence of aging-associated changes in cellular and vascular morphologies, microarchitectural alterations suggestive of inflammaging, and diminution of a potentially active megakaryocytic niche. Our findings overall suggest that there is topographic remodeling of human hematopoiesis associated with aging. More generally, we demonstrate the potential to deeply unravel the spatial biology of normal and pathologic human bone marrow states using intact archival tissue specimens.