This study further investigated the BM microenvironment heterogeneity in terms of mitochondria transfer and demonstrated that in response to infection, ROS-induced oxidative stress promotes phosp-protein kinase B (AKT) signaling, which drives Cx43 channel-mediated mitochondria transfer from BM-MSCs but not from other niche cells to HSPCs (Mistry et al., 2019). The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is infection.