Lineage commitment is an irreversible process where hematopoietic stem cells or HSCs lose their multipotency and differentiate into precursors of a particular cell type. The stepwise process is primarily determined by growth factors called cytokines, which help the progenitors give rise to specific blood and immune cells. First, the HSCs divide and form hematopoietic progenitor cells or HPCs. Based on the type of cytokine receptor present on HPCs, they differentiate into common myeloid progenitors or CMPs, or common lymphoid progenitors, or CLPs. The primed progenitors follow the cytokine gradient and migrate to cytokine-enriched regions in the bone marrow, except for T cell progenitors, which migrate to the thymus. CMPs further develop into megakaryocyte-erythroid progenitors or MEPs, and granulocyte-macrophage progenitors or GMPs, yielding erythrocytes, granulocytes and monocytes. CLPs differentiate into precursors of natural killer cells, T-cells, or B cells.