The epidermis and its appendages, the hair follicle and sebaceous gland, have the capacity to constantly regenerate throughout adult life. Postnatal hair follicles undergo a cyclic mode of tissue homeostasis, defined by periods of growth, degeneration, and rest. A multipotent popula ...
Even though hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) are amongst the first somatic stem cells exploited for therapeutic purposes, their application is still limited by the inability to expand them ex vivo without impairing their function. Moreover, it has recently emerged that several types of leu ...
Analysis of tissue repair and regeneration in a variety of organisms has demonstrated that stem and progenitor cells play a critical role in the healing and regenerative response. In particular, during cutaneous wound healing bone marrow-derived cells are recruited to the site of injury in ...
Asymmetric cell division is essential during development to generate cell diversity and throughout adult life to maintain tissue homeostasis. For instance, many types of stem cells must divide asymmetrically to maintain their self-renewal capacities. Furthermore, recent stu ...
In Drosophila, the central nervous system is populated by a set of asymmetrically dividing neural stem cells called neuroblasts. Neuroblasts are derived from epithelial or neuroepithelial precursors, and divide along their apico-basal axes to produce a large apical neuroblast and a s ...
The neural plate consists of neuroepithelial cells that serve as progenitors for the mature central nervous system. The neural plate is a highly regionalized structure, harboring neural progenitors with different programs of differentiation, due to signaling or intrinsic diffe ...
Urodele amphibians such as axolotl are well known for their regenerative potential of the damaged central nervous system structures. Upon tail amputation, neural stem cells behind the amputation plane undergo self-renewing divisions and contribute to the functional spinal cord in ...
The study of melanocyte biology in the zebrafish presents a highly tractable system for understanding fundamental principles of developmental biology. Melanocytes are visible in the transparent embryo and in the mature fish following metamorphosis, a physical transformation ...
Planarians provide a relatively simple model system in which to study stem cell dynamics and regenerative phenomena. As with other systems understanding the dynamics of stem cell and stem cell progeny is crucial in order to get at the molecular mechanisms orchestrating stem cell biology. Pl ...
Zebrafish breed year round and females are capable of producing thousands of eggs during their lifetime. This amazing fecundity is due to the fact that the adult ovary, contains premeiotic oocyte progenitor cells, called oogonia, which produce a continuous supply of new oocytes throughout ...
In Xenopus the first blood cells to differentiate in the embryo are the primitive myeloid lineages, which arise from the anterior ventral blood islands during the neurula stages. Primitive myeloid cells (PMCs) will give rise to the embryonic pool of neutrophils and macrophages, a highly migr ...
The vertebrate inner ear is composed of several specialized epithelia containing mechanosensory “hair” cells, sensitive to sound and head movements. In mammals, the loss of hair cells for example during aging or after noise trauma is irreversible and results in permanent sensory defici ...
The unlimited differentiation and proliferation capacity of embryonic stem cells represents a great resource for regenerative medicine. Here, we describe a method for differentiating, isolating, and expanding endothelial cells (ECs) from mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs). F ...
Normal and tumor stem cells are present in rare quantities in tissues and this has historically represented a major hurdle to in-depth investigations of their biology. In the case of the mammary gland, the relative promiscuity of the immunophenotypical markers described in several studi ...
Peripheral nerve injuries are an economic burden for society in general and despite advanced microsurgical reconstruction of the damaged nerves the functional result is unsatisfactory with poor sensory recovery and reduced motor functions (Wiberg and Terenghi, Surg Technol Int ...
In recent years there has been a growing interest in culturing adherent cells using three-dimensional (3D) techniques, rather than more conventional 2D culture methods. This interest emerges from the realization that growing cells on plastic surfaces cannot truly re-create 3D in vivo c ...
The cellular and molecular elements involved in the turnover and regeneration of the lung alveolar epithelium remain largely unknown (Kim, Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 293:L1092–1098, 2007). Isolation and characterization of putative stem cells with limited and nonspecific mar ...
Extracellular signals play a central role in coordinating the growth and differentiation of epidermal stem cells. This protocol describes a technique for quantitatively examining the influence of extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions on keratinocyte terminal differen ...
Skeletal muscle contains an identified resident stem cell population called the satellite cells. This cell is responsible for the majority of the postnatal growth and regenerative potential of skeletal muscle. Other cells do contribute to skeletal muscle regeneration and in cultur ...
A serious shortcoming in the derivation of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines has been the availability of human embryos. About 60% of human embryos generated by in vitro fertilization (IVF) fail to develop normally and are unusable for fertility treatment. Such embryos often retain suff ...