Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Oct 26, 2015; 7(9): 1145-1149
Published online Oct 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i9.1145
Understanding leukemic hematopoiesis as a complex adaptive system
Xavier Thomas
Xavier Thomas, Department of Hematology, Lyon-Sud Hospital, 69495 Pierre Bénite Cedex, France
Author contributions: Thomas X conceived the issues which formed the content of the manuscript and wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author has no conflict of interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Xavier Thomas, MD, PhD, Department of Hematology, Lyon-Sud Hospital, Bat. 1G, 165 chemin du Grand Revoyet, 69495 Pierre Bénite Cedex, France. xavier.thomas@chu-lyon.fr
Telephone: +33-47-8862235 Fax: +33-47-2678880
Received: May 27, 2015
Peer-review started: May 30, 2015
First decision: August 4, 2015
Revised: August 24, 2015
Accepted: October 12, 2015
Article in press: October 13, 2015
Published online: October 26, 2015
Processing time: 155 Days and 17.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Complex adaptive systems are self-organizing systems involved everywhere. In bone marrow, cell lineages are working as a complex adaptive sytem. While the standard leukemia stem cell theory postulates that rare stem cells with self-renewal capacities are able to give rise to partially differentiated progenies, leukemia appears as a breakdown of the existing biological order under the influence of genetic and environmental factors, more than only the presence of abnormal cells.