fig1

Figure 1. Hematopoietic stem cell diversity decreases with age. Peripheral blood from young individuals is generated from thousands of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). In the elderly, this clonal diversity collapses because hematopoiesis is dominated by a few HSC clones. While a contribution of other mechanisms cannot be ruled out, this age-related clonal hematopoiesis (CH) is primarily driven by acquired mutations that provide a competitive advantage and allow mutant HSCs to outcompete other stem cells in the pool. Two recent studies shed light on the dynamics of CH during aging^[4,5]. Cells derived from the same HSC are shown in the same color in the figure. Figure created using BioRender.com.