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Christina Rode, Marella de Bruijn (Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK)
Blood stem cells are responsible for the life-long production of all mature blood cells, and as such are clinically important in transplantation therapies. It is not yet possible to successfully expand or generate blood stem cells in culture. In the embryo, they are born from a specialized subset of endothelium in the floor of the dorsal aorta, the hemogenic endothelium. To obtain a more detailed understanding of the birth of blood stem cells we make use of fluorescent reporter transgenes that specifically label the hemogenic endothelium and/or emerging blood cells. Using different reporter transgenes we could identify discrete cellular stages in the transition from endothelium into blood. In addition to 3D imaging, we are performing functional analyses and molecular profiling of the fluorescent reporter-marked cells to provide a better understanding of early hematopoietic fate decisions and novel factors involved in these processes. We aim to spatially map this data in a comprehensive manner in relation with embryonic development.