Overlapping Definitive Progenitor Waves Divide and Conquer to Build a Layered Hematopoietic System

Adult innate immune cells are part of a layered hematopoietic system constructed from definitive hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC) with diverse origins during development. One source of HSPC are fetal hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) that provide long-term reconstitution throughout life. However, the extent to which HSC produce mature cells in utero is only recently being uncovered. This is in part due to the added complexity of an overlapping wave of definitive progenitors that derive from yolk sac erythro-myeloid progenitors (EMP). HSC and EMP are generated from spatiotemporally distinct hemogenic endothelia, yet they both migrate to the fetal liver niche where they co-habitate and are presumed to reach their full potential. Delineation of the respective HSC and EMP pathways towards developmental immune cell differentiation has been confounded by challenges in ontogeny-specific cell labeling. In this study, in vivo inducible pulse chase labeling revealed that HSC contribute little to fetal myelopoiesis and that EMP are the predominant source of mature myeloid cells until birth. This is similar to what has been reported for the erythroid branch of hematopoiesis thereby establishing a developmentally-restricted privilege for erythro-myeloid differentiation from EMP compared to HSC. Tracing the origins of mature cells to the progenitor level by immunophenotyping and single cell RNA sequencing uncovered a dichotomy in the allocation of fetal liver EMP and HSC to myeloid progenitor subsets, both in timing and lineage bias. This has exposed an uncoupling between developmental granulopoiesis and monopoiesis from EMP and HSC pathways, and provides a framework for future studies of HSC-dependent and -independent hematopoiesis. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIEMP-to-HSC switch in fetal liver myelopoiesis occurs late in gestation C_LIO_LIEMP are efficient at producing early transit amplifying erythroid and myeloid intermediates C_LIO_LIscRNA-seq reveals three trajectories of EMP myelopoiesis C_LIO_LIMyeloid lineage commitment during development is cell type and ontogeny specific C_LI