Granulopoiesis (or granulocytopoiesis) is a part of haematopoiesis, that leads to the production of granulocytes. A granulocyte, also referred to as a polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN), is a type of white blood cell that has multi lobed nuclei, usually containing three lobes, and has a significant amount of cytoplasmic granules within the cell. Granulopoiesis takes place in the bone marrow. It leads to the production of three types of mature granulocytes: neutrophils (most abundant, making up to 60% of all white blood cells), eosinophils (up to 4%) and basophils (up to 1%). Stages of granulocyte development Granulopoiesis is often divided into two parts; 1) Granulocyte lineage determination and 2) Commited granulopoiesis. Granulocyte lineage determination Granulopoiesis, as well as the rest of haematopoiesis, begins from a haematopoietic stem cells. These are multipotent cells that reside in the bone marrow niche and have the ability to give rise to all haematopoietic cells, as well as the ability of self renewal. They give rise to either a common lymphoid progenitor (CLP, a progenitor for all lymphoid cells) or a common myeloid progenitor, CMP, an oligopotent progenitor cell, that gives rise to the myeloid part of the haematopoietic tree. The first stage of the myeloid lineage is a granulocyte - monocyte progenitor (GMP), still an oligopotent progenitor, which then develops into unipotent cells that will later on form a population of granulocytes, as well as a population of monocytes. The first unipotent cell in granulopoiesis is a myeloblast. Committed granulopoiesis Committed granulopoiesis consists of maturation stages of unipotent cells. The first cell that starts to resemble a granulocyte is a myeloblast. It is characterized by large oval nucleus that takes up most of the space in the cell and very little cytoplasm. The next developmental stage, a promyelocyte, still has a large oval nucleus, but there is more cytoplasm in the cell at this point, also cytoplasmic granules are beginning to form. The development of granules continues with the next stage, a myelocyte. At this point, the nucleus is starting to shrink. At the stage of a metamyelocyte the cell nucleus is becoming kidney-shaped and it becomes even more bent in the stage of a band cell. The maturation is finished with the emergence of a segmented nucleus that is specific for a mature granulocyte. Regulation of granulopoiesis Transcriptional regulation The maturation of granulocytic precursors is tightly regulated at transcriptional level. Granulocyte lineage determination is