Mononuclear cells were isolated from cord blood (CRB Saint- Louis Hospital, Paris, France) or adult bone marrow donors with written informed consent for research use, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The ethics evaluation committee of INSERM, the Institutional Review Board (IRB00003888), approved our research project (n. 16-319). Mononucleated cells were separated by Ficoll-Paque (Life Technologies) and purified with a human CD34 MicroBead Kit (cat. n. 130100453, Miltenyi Biotec). A two-step culture method for cell expansion and erythroid differentiation was used to obtain highly stage-enriched erythroblast populations.36 (link),37 (link) Briefly, CD34+ cells (purity 94-98%) were cultured for 7 days with interleukin (IL)6, IL3 (10 ng/mL), and stem cell factor (SCF, 100 ng/mL) to expand hematopoietic progenitors.37 (link) CD36+ erythroid progenitors were purified using magnetic microbeads (CD36 FA6.152 from Beckman Coulter and anti-mouse IgG1 MicroBeads from Miltenyi Biotec). Then, erythropoietin (EPO) was added for 10-18 days to allow erythroid differentiation. For assays of colony-forming cells (CFC, counted at 11-14 days), CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells were seeded in methylcellulose (H4034, StemCell Technologies). TGFbRI inhibitor SB431542 was from Selleckchem (cat. n. S1067)38 (link) and TGFb was from Peprotech (cat. n. 100-21).