Shedding light on the DARC knight as a guardian of hematopoietic stem cell quiescence

In-depth understanding of the crosstalk between hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and their niche, and identification of ‘functional’ surface markers of HSCs are vital in the advancement of therapies for hematological disorders (e.g., ex vivo expansion or transplantation of HSCs). MacNamara (1) and Pérez-Fernández et al. (2) respectively provided constructive comments on our results and made very interesting suggestions regarding clinical application of the CD82/DARC axis. In this Correspondence, we aim to add to the discussion (1,2) on our recent article (3).