The Blood and Cancer Biology Laboratory headed by Dr Maggie Kalev published a paper in Thrombosis and Haemostasis (Impact Factor 4.733) that demonstrates for the first time that intracellular calcium homeostasis in a common progenitor regulates differentiation between platelet and red cell lineages.
The significance of this research lies in a clinical connection. Mutations in calreticulin (calcium binding protein) are found in 30% of patients with certain myeloproliferative neoplasms driven by platelet precursors. This paper provides the first evidence that intracellular calcium imbalance may have pathogenic significance.
The paper was selected for the cover image in Thrombosis and Haemostasis, and the group has followed it quickly with a review in Frontiers of Physiology (Impact Factor 3.201), published together with their collaborators from the University of Zurich.
Paper title:
- N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor hypofunction in Meg-01 cells reveals a role for intracellular calcium homeostasis in balancing megakaryocytic-erythroid differentiation. J I Hearn, TN Green, M Chopra, YNS Nursalim, L Ladvanszky, N Knowlton, C Blenkiron, R C Poulsen, D C Singleton, S K Bohlander, M L Kalev-Zylinska . Thrombosis and Haemostasis.
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- N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in hematopoietic cells: what have we learned? ML Kalev-Zylinska, J I Hearn, A Makhro, A Bogdanova. Frontiers in Physiology. DOI:
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