Hematopoiesis is a finely tuned process with intricate feedback mechanisms for regulating production of mature blood cells. Many of the lineage commitment and differentiation decisions of hematopoietic cells are dictated by the delicate balance of transcription factors. Most basal transcription factors are constitutively active, but some require activation in order to translocate to the nucleus and regulate gene expression. JAK-STAT pathway activation provides a rapid way for extracellular signals to rapidly transduce signals resulting in STAT activation within minutes and gene expression within hours of the initial cytokine exposure. Once tyrosine phosphorylated, transcriptionally activated STATs accumulate in the nucleus.Signal transducer and activator of transcription-5 (STAT5) comprises two separate genes, 1 STAT5A and STAT5B, which collectively are major regulators of normal hematopoiesis with pleiotropic roles in hematopoietic stem cell (HSC), [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC), [8][9][10] and mature cell populations.11-14 Although the differences in phenotype of mice lacking STAT5A vs. STAT5B 15,16 were primarily assumed to be due to differences in tissue specific gene expression, functional differences have been more recently discovered. For example, ERβ regulation appears to be mediated only by STAT5B,17 and STAT5B-deficient patients have been discovered that have reduced numbers of regulatory T cells and short stature. [18][19][20] These phenotypes are consistent with major non-redundant roles for STAT5B in regulation of target genes such as FoxP3 and IGF1. Knockdown studies of STAT5A and STAT5B in human CD4 + T cells confirmed this specificity for FoxP3 21 and knockdown studies in IL-3 stimulated murine BaF3 cells identified overlapping and unique sets of STAT5 target genes by chromatin immunoprecipitation.
22Interestingly, the ability for STAT5 binding to modulate gene expression appears to be under additional levels of regulation such as serine phosphorylation [23][24][25] and glycosylation 26 which may influence interactions with CREB-binding protein. Serine phosphorylation has been described for most STATs 27,28 although the positive or negative influence of this modification has been debated. 29 The normal role of STAT5 serine phosphorylation in hematopoiesis has not been tested and the effect may be very cell type and cell context specific. Serine phosphorylation could facilitate interaction of STAT5 with critical accessory proteins required for nuclear localization of tyrosine phosphorylated STAT5. Cooperative signals mediated by serine and tyrosine phosphorylation could also be lineage-specific and further studies of serine phosphorylation deficient STAT5 mutants are needed to fully understand this level of regulation in HSC and throughout hematopoiesis.We have reported that STAT5 is required for HSC "fitness" with its deficiency resulting in greatly impaired long-term multilineage competitive repopulation capacity of fetal liver 4,10 and bone marrow 2-7 HSC in lethall...