A vicious interplay between genetic and environmental insults in the etiology of blood cancers

- Epigenetic (embryos) and genetic (aging) mechanisms generate multiple hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) clones.
- Aging reduces the number of active HSC clones.
- Old HSC clones have lower self-renewal and skewed myeloid differentiation potential.
- Environmental and genetic insults can cooperatively initiate blood cancer.
- Environmental insults may provide proliferative advantages to malignant HSCs.