Stem cells
- Disease modelling in human organoids
Summary: Human organoids are important tools for modelling disease. This At a Glance article summarises the current organoid models of several human diseases, and discusses future prospects for these technologies.
- Plasticity of differentiated cells in wound repair and tumorigenesis, part II: skin and intestine
Summary: This final installment of a two-part Review discusses how cycles of dedifferentiation and redifferentiation can promote tumorigenesis in the skin and intestine, showing how plasticity in these continuously renewing tissues might contribute to tumorigenesis.
- A carcinogenic trigger to study the function of tumor suppressor genes in Schmidtea mediterranea
Summary: Combining exposure to the human carcinogen cadmium with in silico and proteomic top-down approaches, we disclosed the conserved function of two novel tumor suppressor genes in planarian.
- Plasticity of differentiated cells in wound repair and tumorigenesis, part I: stomach and pancreas
Summary: Epithelial cells in diverse tissues have an innate plasticity program (recently dubbed ‘paligenosis’) such that differentiated cells can become regenerative upon large-scale insults to an organ. Thus, the proliferating, regenerative cells in an organ may not always derive directly from stem cells, which invites us to refine theories about the cell of origin of cancer such as the multi-hit model of tumorigenesis.
- Loss of Cln5 causes altered neurogenesis in a mouse model of a childhood neurodegenerative disorder
Editors’ choice: This study demonstrates neurogenic alterations in the most common neurodegenerative disease of children and reports a novel function of the CLN5 protein.
- Gastrointestinal stem cells in health and disease: from flies to humans
Drosophila Collection: This Review highlights recent findings on intestinal stem cell (ISC) diversity in the GI tract of Drosophila, focusing on the role of ISCs in healthy and diseased conditions, and drawing parallels to vertebrate GI stem cells.
- Human umbilical cord matrix-derived stem cells exert trophic effects on β-cell survival in diabetic rats and isolated islets
Summary: The newly identified paracrine role of umbilical cord stem cells highlights their therapeutic utilities to treat not only the autoimmune-mediated type 1 diabetes but also type 2 diabetes.