Lin Haifan
Department of Cell Biology, Box 3709, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710, USA.
Nat Rev Genet. 2002 Dec;3(12):931-40. doi: 10.1038/nrg952.
Stem cells are characterized by their ability to self-renew and to produce numerous differentiated cell types, and are directly responsible for generating and maintaining tissues and organs. This property has long been attributed to the instructive signals that stem cells receive from their microenvironment - the so-called 'stem-cell niche'. Studies of stem cells in the Drosophila gonad have yielded much exciting insight into the structure of the niche and the signalling pathways that it produces to regulate the self-renewal of stem cells. These findings are illuminating our understanding of the self-renewing mechanisms of tissue stem cells in general.
干细胞的特点是具有自我更新能力，并能产生多种分化细胞类型，它们直接负责生成和维持组织及器官。长期以来，这种特性一直被归因于干细胞从其微环境（即所谓的“干细胞生态位”）接收到的指导性信号。对果蝇性腺中干细胞的研究，为生态位的结构及其产生的调节干细胞自我更新的信号通路提供了许多令人兴奋的见解。这些发现总体上正在阐明我们对组织干细胞自我更新机制的理解。
