Environments of hematopoiesis and B-lymphopoiesis in foetal liver.

In human and murine embryonic development, haematopoiesis and B-lymphopoiesis show stepwise differentiation from pluripotent haematopoietic stem cells and multipotent progenitors, over lineage-restricted lymphoid and myeloid progenitors to B-lineage committed precursors and finally differentiated pro/preB cells. This wave of differentiation is spatially and temporally organised by the surrounding, mostly non-haematopoietic cell niches. We review here recent developments and our current contributions on the research on blood cell development.