Thrombopoietin — Clinically Realized?

For approximately 30 years, hematologists have sought the humoral regulator of platelet production, thrombopoietin.1 Although a factor with the appropriate physiologic effects was partially purified, the goal continued to evade researchers until 1994, when three laboratories simultaneously reported that c-Mpl ligand had the characteristics of thrombopoietin.2 Synonyms for thrombopoietin in the literature are c-Mpl ligand, mpl ligand, megapoietin, and megakaryocyte growth and development factor (a truncated version of thrombopoietin).What explains the fact that thrombopoietin was ultimately purified and characterized by five laboratories almost simultaneously? In 1992, Wendling and colleagues described the c-mpl gene, the cellular homologue of v- . . .